


11 




Class _Li.lli. 

Book . 'B 5 6 

Copyright 1^^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Science of Education 



BY 

RICHARD CAUSE BOONE, A.M., Ph.D, 

author of 
"education in the united states" and "education in Indiana" 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCEIBNER'S SONS 

1904 



LIBI«»RV "f CONGRESS 
TWo CoDtes Recirtved 

JUL 80 1904 

HiTleht Entry 
^ ^ - /^ /? f 
IL XXo. No. 

t I I f 



^ 



COPY B 



COPTKIGDT, 1904, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNBR'8 SONS 



P<;& 



Co 

THE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS WHO HAVE 
FOLLOWED THESE DISCUSSIONS IN THE PAST 
IN COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CLASS-ROOMS, 
AND TO THE LARGER PUBLIC WHOSE ENCOUR- 
AGEMENT HAS HELPED THE AUTHOR TO CONFI- 
DENCE IN THEM, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

This volume, both in matter and method, has grown 
out of many years' use of the discussions of these and 
similar topics in the Pedagogical Department of the 
University of Indiana, in the Michigan Normal College, 
before bodies of city teachers, and in Institutes gener- 
ally. It will be obvious to the reader that it is not a 
treatise upon methods of teaching. It concerns itself 
chiefly with the educational process, and the materials 
for the derived science. The point of view is historical, 
and the purpose has been consistently maintained to 
find in the general evolution of function and faculty 
a consistent background for the current conditions and 
the presupi^ositions of the science. A brief but some- 
what comprehensive bibliography of modern works is 
appended for the guidance of teachers in further read- 
ing. It would be impossible to give credit to all authors 
quoted, though the foot-notes or the text will gener- 
ally indicate the source of most materials borrowed. 
And recent literature is rich in suggestion bearing upon 
the Science of Education. To all such I freely acknowl- 
edge my obligations, and here express my appreciation. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Intkoduction xi 



PABT I 

THE NATURE OF EDUCATION 

CHAPTER 

I. Arts and Their Sciences 3 

II. Professions and Trades 12 

III. Education and the Allied Arts 25 

IV. Tentative Cliaracteristics of Education ... 44 
V. Tentative Characteristics of Education — Con- 
tinued ()0 

VI. The Subject of Education 74 

VII. The Instrument of Education 94 

VIII. The Instrument of Education — Continued . 108 

IX. The Motive in Education 124 

X. The Motive in Education — Continued . . . 137 

XI. The Motive in Education — Concluded . . .150 

XII. The Condition in Education 164 



PART II 

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE 

XIII. The Nature of Science 173 

XIV. The Scientific Method 186 



Contents 



PART III 

THE DATA OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 

CHAPTER 

XV. Their General Character 



XVI. General Character of Data — Coucluded 



307 
218 



PART IV 

CONTRIBUTING SCIENCES 

XVII. The Physiological Relations of Mind . . 239 

XVIII. The Special Senses 254 

XIX. Psychology 2GG 

XX. Mental Processes 283 

XXI. Mental Processes — Concluded 295 

XXII. The Growth of Emotions 307 

XXIII. The Growth of Intelligence 317 

XXIV. Ethical Relations 329 

XXV. Ethical Relations — Continued 341 

XXVI. Industrial Relations 357 

XXVII. Anthropology 371 

BiBLIOGKAPHY 397 



INTRODUCTION 

HiSTOKiCAL record furnishes material for a most in- 
teresting study, and one particularly attractive and 
profitable to growing teachers. Every nation having 
emerged into a state of civilization, and imdertaken the 
jDromotion of national growth in civic graces and effi- 
ciency, has made its contribution to a store of educa- 
tional doctrine. In each case the national type, though 
often held unconsciously, yet operated to fix the char- 
acter of the formal training. Speaking generally, 
whatever has been accomplished among any people of 
any age in education and the formal culture — as in art, 
religion, invention, and the social order — has been 
colored and shaped in terms of this national spirit. 
Educational theory and practice furnish no exception. 
For no people can these get far away from the national 
traditions that hold ascendency. " A nation, like an 
individual, has its own instinct and genius." As in 
the individual, so in the nation, this is the determining 
factor in fixing both the quality of its culture and the 
direction which its forces may take. It is one function 
of any people's systematic education to utilize, not 
necessarily to conform to^ this particular bias; to re- 
gard it as a vantage ground from which to work in the 



xii Introduction 

effort to place the particular nation or individual in 
possession of the net results of other nations' and other 
individuals' culture, to the end that each may be lifted 
from an exclusive or particular plane to a participation 
in the true world culture — made to partake of the great, 
the universal spirit. This is humanism as set over 
against a narrow specialism. 

Briefly, then, education should reveal these three 
phases: (1) individual, and diverse in its means and 
conditions as are individuals; (2) national, recog- 
nizing and measurably conserving, adapting itself to 
the national spirit; and (3) humane or racial, taking 
up into the individual and the nation such of the 
cultures as the antecedents or contemporaries of either 
have worked out. " If," says M. Fouillee,* blind at- 
tachment to tradition involves immobility, the no less 
blind contempt for national tradition no less involves 
it: for each suppresses living forces from which move- 
ment may be derived." Each nation may well set it- 
self to learn from every other, but it must not forget 
that the primary inspiration is to be found in its own 
life, its conditions and standards and ideals. Each has 
its own inheritances in the race's achievements; is 
charged mth its share in the world's stream of culture 
and attainment, and must, therefore, find in these its 
chief ground of progress. This is the fulcrum on 
which the lever of its elevation is to work. All edu- 
cation partakes of the general character of the evolu- 
tionary process. In both its method and material it 
* M. Fouillee. "Education from a National Standpoint," p. 110. 



Introduction xiii 

finds important meanings in the race's development. 
This race inheritance is one factor in fixing the char- 
acter of the educational doctrine herein set forth. It 
has bearings on the method of procedure; influences in 
a minor degree only the subject-matter of the school 
curriculum; and, in a large way, the selection of ma- 
terial for the science of education as worked out. 



THE NATURE OF EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

ARTS AND THEIR SCIENCES 

There is, presumptively, a Science of Education. 
Both processes and guidance in education have been 
enriched by experience. Knowledge has gradually 
taken the form of principles or rules, and the art of 
teaching has so far been rational. It was naturally 
reserved to recent generations to give these pedagogi- 
cal materials form in an organized system. The philo- 
sophical, art, and ethical literatures of the race, from 
the earliest records, make reference to certain funda- 
mentals. They are infrequent, however, and often 
incidental. Of all the ancients perhaps, Plato has 
left us both the clearest and fullest statement. For 
a thousand years thereafter not much was attempted 
in educational theory, and less accomplished. The 
great Reformation, in finding a place for individ- 
ual protest and privilege, opened the way for an empha- 
sis of growth and maturing in his manifold relations, as 
one of man's native characteristics. Luther and Mil- 
ton and their contemporaries laid the foundations of 
the later systematic ordering of reflective thought 
on directed education. Pousseau and Pestalozzi and 
Proebel, often in partial and broken ways, re-enforced 
the current philosophies. The German philosophers, 

3 



4 Science of Education 

headed by Kant, gave logical form to certain under- 
lying truths. Spencer modernized and vitalized the 
race's human interest in its environment. The growth 
and service of the Church have dignified schools and 
all the means of education, in the bestowal of concep- 
tions of the far-reaching and abiding cravings of the 
soul. The secularizing of education has followed a 
recognition of the possibility of an essentially divine 
life here and now. And, conceding the equal rights 
of all to a 'share in the privileges of education, the 
extension of schools to reach all gives an added impor- 
tance to the movement, and to all reflective interests in 
it. Community regard for education and the public 
support of it make all the more necessary the right 
ordering of its methods upon sound conceptions of its 
nature. 

There is presumptively, if not constructively, a Sci- 
ence of Education. We may dispute about particular 
terms, and about a body of consistent nomenclature 
and even about the contributing materials; but there 
is abundant evidence that, even in the lay mind, there is 
knowledge of a kind that implies more general notions 
that give this knowledge validity. Attention is called 
to the following observations: 

( 1 ) An admitted art of teaching implies some stand- 
ard by which to measure the efficiency of the art. 
Successful farming observes certain principles, such 
as, e.g., involve the right rotation of crops; selected 
fertilizers suited to the grains sown; fitting the crops 
to the particular soil; times and seasons in planting; 



'Arts and Their Sciences 5 

careful subsoiling; the times and conditions of harvest- 
ing; the self -seeding of meadows, etc. — conditions from 
whose operation are in time derived well-established 
laws concerning seeding, cultivating, and harvesting. 
Carpentry becomes skilful through intelligently regard- 
ing the nature and fibres of woods, the strength of 
materials, the relations of joints and braces, cleavage, 
grains, splicing, cuts, glues, tools, and such like con- 
ditions and handling; out of a knowledge of which 
grows a body of accepted directions for making the 
working with wood, in manufacture, effective. The 
art of healing implies a body of knowledge about health 
and disease, curative drugs and their physiological re- 
actions, diet and exercise; in the light of whose con- 
clusions the art is practised. The art of music rests 
upon a knowledge of musical sounds, the voice, the 
scale, melody and harmony of musical tones, movement 
and grouping of tones, chorus and accompaniments, 
typical musical instruments, etc., which, organized, 
becomes the science of music. 

So out of the experience of thoughtful teachers in 
the past have been derived certain guiding principles, 
as to the nature of the educational process, the act of 
learning, the steps and conditions in maturing, the life 
functions of knowledge, the instruments of education. 
The principles are sometimes unrelated, or again fairly 
organized into a system: but in either case, forming a 
standard by which to measure the practice. The teach- 
ing is thought to be good or bad as it conforms to or 
opposes these guiding principles. The fact that it may 



6 Science of Education 

be thought good or poor presupposes some standard of 
efficiency for determining its quality. The standard 
may be a very simple one, or more elaborate; but if 
the teaching act be purposeful and orderly, the rules 
of procedure constitute a potential science having the 
school practice as its art. 

(2) So also, a growing body of pedagogical writings 
suggests a prevalent recognition of the trustworthiness 
of directions for pursuing or improving the art. From 
the days of Christopher Dock's "' Schul Ordnung " 
(1Y50), down through the years to the present, in this 
country, and from a time some centuries earlier, among 
all of the older nations, books have been multiplied on 
the nature of education, and the functions and condi- 
tions of effective teaching, l^o great system of philos- 
ophy has been propounded that has not had its direct or 
implied dictum on education. Socrates was primarily 
a teacher as well as philosopher, and formulated a 
method of induction and logical definition ; Plato's 
memory and reputation are connected with the teach- 
ing of the Academy, and with the two works, " The 
Republic " and " The Laws," both having distinct 
pedagogical meanings ; Aristotle, the teacher of Alex- 
ander, philosopher and scientist, promoter if not orig- 
inator of the inductive method, held that the prime 
object of the state is " to make its citizens good men " ; 
among the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, Duns Scotus 
substituted for the "' believe that yoii may know," the 
larger freedom of " know that you may believe " ; 
Bacon's writings are an unbroken exposition of scien- 



Arts and Their Sciences 7 

tific empiricism, and include an admirable essay en- 
titled " On the Advancement of Learning " ; Locke's 
two essays, "On the Conduct of the Understanding," 
and " Thoughts concerning Education," accompany 
much other philosophical writing; Leibnitz, who has 
been characterized as, next to Aristotle, " the most com- 
prehensive genius that ever lived," foreshadowed, if he 
did not announce, the modern notions of " the Conser- 
vation of Energy," and " Heat as a Mode of Motion," 
applied his philosophy to a discussion of the nature of 
education, and through his reasonable optimism, doubt- 
less inspired the " Essay on Man " ; Kant included his 
Pedagogics as a part of the treatment of " The Practical 
Reason " ; along with his philosophy, Fichte is remem- 
bered for his educational " Addresses to the German 
Nation " ; Herbart, successor to Kant in the University 
of Berlin, founder and director of a Pedagogical Semi- 
nary, is the author of a " System of Ethics," and 
" General Principles of Education," that have had a 
wide influence in this generation ; Schelling, as a 
teacher of Agassiz, projected his philosophy into peda- 
gogical lines ; and Hegel, schoolmaster and philosopher, 
inspirer of Rosenkranz and a large school of writers 
and thinkers in not only philosophy, but in pedagogy 
and history, is the author of the " Phenomenology of 
Spirit," the " Philosophy of History," and other trea- 
tises that have had a direct influence on educational 
thought and practice in a number of ways. Eminent 
commentators and philosophical essayists have found 
education a fruitful theme, as witness, Luther (" Ad- 



8 Science of Education 

dress to German Cities"), Milton (" Tractate on Edu- 
cation"), Goethe ("Wilhelm Meister"), Carlyle 
("Sartor Resartus "), Emerson ("Essays"). It has 
been a recurring and cherished thought of poets, great 
and small. Of the more distinctively professional 
literature, a standard catalogue of pedagogical works 
enumerates in America hut 10 books before 1800 and 
nearly 2,000 during the nineteenth century. During 
the last generation such books have multiplied amaz- 
ingly. Their writing and publication show the con- 
fidence of thoughtful and scholarly people in the 
validity of certain postulates as fundamental in the 
explanation of the art. That many of these utterances 
are discredited by some, and that, among teachers, 
there is much disagreement as to the statement of prin- 
ciples and organization of materials, does not impair 
the argument. Good teaching may be justified, and 
poor teaching improved, by regarding certain dicta 
derived from reflective experience. It is confidently 
believed that thoughtful members of the profession are 
already in accord on certain principles underlying the 
processes of learning, and that a more general agree- 
ment prevails than formerly with reference to the con- 
ditions of effective and wholesome teaching. The peda- 
gogical literature of the day is not only an index of a 
current belief in the movement to explain and improve 
teaching, and to account for the steps and conditions 
in the process of maturing, but this body of literature 
is itself a factor in furthering the reorganization of 
thought upon educational questions. This growing 



'Arts and Their Sciences 9 

body of pedagogical writings suggests a prevalent recog- 
nition of the trustworthiness of directions for pursuing 
or improving the art. 

(3) To these more formal statements should be 
added, as illustrating the wide-spread professional inter- 
est in education, a consideration of the numerous, more 
or less pretentious, and suggestive lay criticisms and 
constructive theories upon the subject to be found in the 
high-class literary and scientific periodicals of the day. 
Common intelligence apprehends the problems and con- 
ditions involved and has set itself to assist in the solu- 
tion. These discussions also represent a growing con- 
fidence in the existence of more or less helpful guiding 
principles and in their trustworthiness as professional 
dicta. They represent interest and inquiry, some of 
it careful; occasionally a real testing of conclusions; 
and the bringing to bear upon them of a wealth of 
culture and critical estimate, tending to clarify current 
conceptions of what is important and what is not, and 
why. That men are disposed to think there is a " why " 
means much to a growing science ; to be able to answer 
the why in a rational and helpful way for any one of the 
serious questions is a step forward. That questions 
continue to be asked and serious answers attempted 
about not the surface conditions only, but the basic 
ones as well, means confidence, not only that there are 
such questions, but that they may be answered. 

(4) Further, the existence of normal schools, train- 
ing classes, and pedagogical departments in the higher 
institutions of learning, and their general patronage, 



10 Science of Education 

reveal a conviction that certain conditioning principles 
underlying the educative process may be conveyed to 
others, that the " born " teacher may learn the grounds 
of good teaching, and that there are such grounds. In 
the establishment of nonnal schools or other institu- 
tions for the training of teachers, from the beginning 
of this movement, never has this been doubted. In the 
minds of school people this has been argued as the suf- 
ficient reason for their establishment. And this train- 
ing has been planned to include, not alone practice in 
the art of teaching — lesson-giving, school management, 
discipline, etc. — but consideration of the rationale of 
lesson-giving, school management, discipline, etc. In- 
deed, even among normal-school men, there is a large 
minority of them who hold that intelligent practice can 
only be had in real schools, where one is responsible for 
the instruction ; but that the theory of teaching, and the 
nature of the educational process, and the implications 
of the race's experience, may be imparted to candidates 
otherwise fitted for the profession. These schools are a 
standing evidence of faith in the existence and validity 
and usefulness of organizable material, out of which 
is being constructed a science of education. Though 
many government weather predictions fail, more than 
eighty per cent, of them are confirmed ; much so-called 
scientific farming is fruitless, and precedent lawyers 
swarm, and medical quacks scourge the public, and 
most philanthropy is wasteful, and speech and writing 
are both often creatures of whim; but no one doubts 
that weather-forecasting, and farming, and law, and 



Arts and Their Sciences 11 

medicine, and philanthropy, and speech, and writing 
may all be practised upon scientific principles. 

Though professional schools for teachers differ in 
their statements and organization of the fundamental 
principles underlying the art ; and though the product of 
the best of these schools is sometimes indifferent; and 
though trained teachers occasionally fail in the attempt 
to teach — to apply this theory, it may not reasonably 
be doubted that the purjx)se of these schools is, in 
large measure, realized, and that they justify the faith 
of their founders in the existence and practicability of 
such principles and their ultimate organization into 
some feasible system. The establishment of profes- 
sional schools to train teachers, and their general pat- 
ronage, reveal a conviction that certain conditioning 
postulates underlying the educational process may be 
conveyed to others and made effective in the art. An 
encouraging sign of the times, in this particular, is that 
these schools and pedagogical departments in some of 
the colleges and universities, and various voluntary 
organizations under the guise of education societies and 
pedagogical clubs, have set themselves seriously and sys- 
tematically to study the problem, and, if possible, re- 
solve the teaching process into its elements and find 
their value in some common philosophic or scientific 
scheme. All of which again gives assurance of a grow- 
ing and intelligent popular and technical faith in the 
processes of maturing and nurture as explicable in terms 
that shall be found intelligible. This is at least a 
science of education in the making, if no more. 



CHAPTER n 
PROFESSIONS AND TRADES 

The conditioning characteristics of a " profession " 
distinguish it from a " trade " or mere " business." 

It is freely conceded that these characteristics them- 
selves are not always clearly marked. Generally they 
are ; in details they are often obscure. In modern life 
certain trades have taken on qualities that were once 
thought to belong peculiarly to the learned professions. 
In other respects, not unimportant either, the pro- 
fession seems to have lost something of its original 
character. Frankly and with entire accuracy it may 
be said that the difference is less marked to-day between 
the two grades of occupation than formerly, though 
there still exist " the sorry trade " and " the learned 
profession." 

Primarily, a profession implies a body of technical 
(applied) knowledge underlying the art, whether that 
art be preaching, or pleading, or therapeutics. Support- 
ing the trade, as such, is a possession of skill. Perhaps 
it were truer to fact to say that in the one knowledge 
predominates, in tlie other efficiency. The former is 
reflective, the latter operative; that academic, this dex- 
terous; the one rests upon principles, the other upon 
ingenuity. The distinction is not inapt, because some 

12 



Professions and Trades 13 

of the highly developed trades have evolved a body of 
technical knowledge, are reflective, and rest upon well- 
established principles ; or that, in the pulpit, there may 
be found very effective preaching accompanied with 
a meagre theology ; or a successful practice of law \vith 
little acquaintance in equity. It only means that in 
our highly industrial age the occupations of man are 
in flux, and, with increasing knowledge and the aggres- 
sions of science, there goes on, on the one hand, a pro- 
fessionalizing of trades, and on the other, an adjust- 
ment of the profession to life. Once the distinction 
would have held with little exception ; it is still ap- 
proximately true, and is here so used. 

Further, to be distinctly professional, this knowledge 
must have been logically related in a system. Speaking 
narrowly, the past has given us systems of theology, of 
medicine, and of law, with their respective arts — 
preaching, therapy, and pleading. The first and second 
have developed several systems, each with its organized 
body of technical knowledge, its adherents forming a 
school, and the practice conforming to its accepted 
theory. The exclusiveness of its art was proportioned 
to its special and peculiar teachings. Its teachings 
were organically related, and were prohibitive of many 
forms of practice entirely legitimate by other schools. 
The technical knowledge had an integral meaning, and 
stood for a certain order of procedure. In theology, 
with its conclusions as to the nature of the soul, the 
future life, sin, right living, repentance, redemption, 
etc. ; in medicine, involving particular theories held as 



14 Science of Education 

to disease and health, the functioning of organs, the 
nature and action of medicines, and conditions of heal- 
ing ; and in law, standing for a fairly uniform meaning 
given to social rights and obligations, the rights of per- 
son and proj:>erty, the civic functions of the state, and 
the body of statutory and constitutional enactments; 
the profession has justified its claim as resting upon 
a body of organically related technical knowledge pe- 
culiar to its art. 

Further, and as a consequence of the two charac- 
teristics named, a profession can be reached and effec- 
tively practised through a course of special training 
only. It is exclusive and difficult of mastery. In the 
trade some sort of skill is the constructive centre of 
interest and efficiency; in the profession, a body of 
ideas. The former are acquired largely through prac- 
tice ; the latter by reflection. The ideas underlying the 
one are few and of more or less common possession ; 
of the latter both more numerous and unfamiliar, and 
therefore less easily acquired. Mediocrity may be 
found as frequently perhaps among tlie professions, in 
proportion to their membership, as among the trades. 
But superior skill among the common trades may be 
attained with more ease, in less time, and with less 
preparation than in the professions. The trade readily 
takes its rise from the common and average life and 
attainments ; the profession implies a training in both 
ideas and terms that are unfamiliar to the common 
mind. The latter, therefore, is more or less exclusive 
as to available membership and difficult of mastery. 



Professions and Trades 15 

As compared with the millions of people who are en- 
gaged in trade there are a few hundred thousand only 
who are even nominally connected with the several 
so-called professions. 

That among the members of all the professions there 
are incompetent ones, and that among tradesmen there 
are many of great ability and success; that among the 
former some have slipped in with little training and 
less reflection, or that in certain trades members have 
spent years in acquiring distinguished expertness of 
knowledge and skill, does not invalidate the argument 
that, as a class, the trades are taken up both more 
easily and generally and with greater assurance upon 
less preparation than are the professions. 

Again, for the success in the professions there is 
required a large and liberal general culture or dis- 
cipline as its foundation. General confidence in the 
soundness of this contention has led, from early times, 
to the use of the term " learned professions." There 
is the prevalent belief in the popular mind, also, which 
has seemed well founded, that these professions rest, 
as the trades do not, upon a body of general culture; 
breadth of view upon the world's doing and thinking; 
the habit of studying conditions, and weighing evi- 
dence, and interpreting motives; an acquaintance with 
the race's development along their respective lines, 
that has been thought available only through years of 
academic and critical study. It is conceded that this 
breadth of view, and critical habit, and historical back- 
ground may be, and have sometimes been, attained 



16 Science of Education 

outside the schools; but it is done with difficulty, at 
a great expense of time, and by the few only. If 
acquired by the tradesman in the line of or as a foun- 
dation for his own business, it all connects him more 
closely with the professional. Speaking broadly, those 
members of the professions also — any profession — who 
do not have this scholarly and disciplined foundation, 
of necessity make their practice more or less of a trade. 
Medicine has its quacks ; law, its pettifoggers ; preach- 
ing, its sensational pretenders ; business, those who 
traffic in deceit ; there are artists who are only daubers ; 
journalists who are sensational scribblers, and teachers 
who " keep school " ; but these neither make nor un- 
make either the professions or trade. The reference 
here is to both at their best. 

Once more, a vocation, to belong to the class whose 
practice is professional, must have recognition as of 
great public utility and of common concern. The 
three so-called learned professions have been supposed 
to compass the race's abiding interests of gravest im- 
port; interests that might not safely be left to undis- 
ciplined ambition and chance attainments. It is con- 
ceivable, indeed, that public comfort and the promotion 
of the common welfare might be endangered by one or 
another of life's great occupations in the class of trades 
also, to the degree that, either by law or public opinion 
and custom, its members would be compelled to reduce 
its practice to a scientific or principled standard, and 
regulate its art in accordance therewith ; to enforce a 
technical and scholastic preparation as a condition of 



Professions and Trades 17 

admission to its order, and to become correspondingly 
exclusive. Indeed, this change is now going on in a 
number of callings that have not heretofore taken rank 
among the professions. This is noticeably true of 
engineering. It is not at all obvious that any of the 
three so-called " learned professions " should to-day be 
thought to outrank engineering on either of the five 
conditions named. Its underlying system of technical 
knowledge is fairly complete. Its principles and skill 
are difficult of acquisition; the current usage exacts, 
as a foundation, a superior general culture, both in 
amount and quality ; and in this day of traffic and 
invention and public responsibility for the common 
weal, in the material sense at least, architectural, sani- 
tary, and commercial engineering have come to high 
regard in society's estimate, and rightly so. In cities, 
at least, unlicensed engineers are forbidden to practise 
their skill; the construction of great buildings, the 
building, equipment, and running of locomotives and 
dynamos and power plants, the installing of elevators, 
the construction of sewers and water-supply systems, 
plumbing and sanitary arrangements upon any large 
scale are left to expert specialists only. What was once 
a trade only has been greatly professionalized. Along 
with the practice of this and the traditional professions 
goes much hack-work and drudgery; but as a vocation 
it has come to repute as having an established character 
of providence and accuracy. As to academic prepara- 
tion for taking up the technical studies among pro- 
fessional students in the United States there is shown 



18 Science of Education 

to be a larger per cent, of engineering students who are 
college-bred than in either of the three professions. 

Journalism and diplomacy appear to be undergoing 
somewhat similar changes. In the same way, and for 
like reasons also, with the increasing complexity of 
modern life and its manifold inventions and the con- 
clusions of science, a closer supervision is, of necessity, 
exercised over its industries. Differences are recog- 
nized and regarded between skilled and unskilled labor ; 
the traditional apprenticeship has fallen into disuse; 
several trades maintain their own separate schools for 
training, and by some of the more highly developed of 
them entrance is restricted to the well-educated. AVhat- 
ever is of great public moment becomes thereby a public 
responsibility, and must be prepared for accordingly — 
whether it be running an automobile, building high- 
ways, nursing the sick, irrigating arid lands, or nego- 
tiating national treaties. The professionalizing of 
trades is under way. 

Finally, the practice of an art to be professional 
must afford such opportunities for a career of civic and 
personal service as will attract a capable following and 
command public respect. It must offer a field of labor 
that shall challenge man's power and hold him up to 
his best — be for him, as an individual, a stimulus to 
high endeavor, taxing the best effort because of the 
goal to be reached, not less than from satisfaction in 
the doing. The reward may be a public's generous 
pay for a generous public service; it may satisfy a 
legitimate craving for a broader sphere of labor; it 



Professions and Trades 19 

may open a door to enlarged civic and humane life. 
It takes on the form of a true profession as it meets 
the aspirations of an eager, disciplined mind, confident 
of its powers and devoted to their exercise. It should 
attract ability and serious purpose, and they should 
find adequate returns in both personal reward and 
beneficent effort. Each of a half-dozen or more great 
vocations might be studied profitably as to the bearing 
upon them of this fact. None of tlie three traditional 
professions should suffer by the comparison, and cer- 
tain of the employments, popularly called trades, would 
be justly exalted. 

In the light of the previous discussion, speaking 
generally and with approximate accuracy, teaching also 
may be regarded as a profession, i.e., as an art, of great 
public significance and honor, resting upon a science. 

Fairly to estimate teaching in the light of the six 
characteristic distinctions of professions and trades 
named in the preceding paragraph would require a 
more elaborate discussion than belongs properly to 
these preliminary statements. In part, the argument 
will find place in chapters iv-xii inclusive. That it meets 
some of the requirements fully, and others partially, 
will j>erhaps be admitted by all. To the degree that it 
falls short on one or another count, in so far, if the 
characterization be true, it fails of being a profession. 
If it conforms in minor qualities, and is found wanting 
in the more important and distinguishing characters, 
the deficiency is all the greater. If it be found to fail 
in the minor attributes only, and to conform to the 



20 Science of Education 

important requirements, it becomes in so far profes- 
sional. What is the situation of teaching among 
specialized callings ? 

Primarily, it is in place to note the recent rapid 
growth of an appropriate body of technical (peda- 
gogical) knoAvledge as an attempt to explain or guide 
the practice. Books, monographs, essays, magazine 
articles, newspaper contributions and criticism, plat- 
form lectures, convention addresses, and class journals, 
severally and in the aggregate, promulgate and promote 
a vast and varied discussion, sometimes descriptive, 
often critical, occasionally carping, at times mischiev- 
ous, even from high sources, more often aggressively 
constructive, frequently biassed and partial ; but all 
looking toward and reinforced by a wide-spread assur- 
ance that there are legitimate standards in terms of 
which teaching may be valued and the principles of 
which may be reduced to a system. That the several 
systems and their creeds do not agree, even in matters 
held as fundamental, should not seem more strange 
than are the contradictions and oppositions and cross- 
purposes among tJieological systems and their issuant 
creeds ; or the divergent interpretations of constitu- 
tional and statutory laws ; or the teachings of estab- 
lished schools of medicine. The free-lance in the pulpit, 
the shyster on the bench, and the quack at the bedside, 
do not fix the status of their respective callings ; no 
more do the novice and device-monger in teaching. 
Under the protecting shelter of what is really meritori- 
ous the charlatan, the pietist, and the pedant will most 



Professions and Trades 21 

surely flourish. The mummery of a busy indifferent- 
ism, vain ceremony, dissimulation, and imposture find 
a strange acceptance. Faith, in the sheep wdth his 
natural covering blinds the eye and the mind to the 
wolf under the fleece. 

From Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, in this 
country, to the latest writer, American pedagogical 
literature has accomplished many and important agree- 
ments. The same system may be variously stated and 
organized, and still be one system. The ultimate pos- 
tulates may issue in manifold creeds and schools and 
sects, but no one doubts that beneath the differences — 
and seemingly irreconcilable differences — there are 
ideals that abide. These writings include every phase 
of schooling and instruction, as well as the broader 
process of education ; infant and adult training, the 
organization of schools and systems, the programme of 
teaching, historic schools and theories, the development 
of educational ideals, the means and materials of in- 
struction and their wise use. There is a considerable 
and rapidly growing body of pedagogical (teclmical) 
knowledge, as the raw material out of which to con- 
struct, or to begin the construction of, a science of 
education, and upon which to erect a profession of 
teaching. 

There is, too, a growing conception in the public 
mind of the indispensableness of professional training 
among teachers. 

It is yet true that the majority of teachers are alto- 
gether untrained for teaching, except as the fitting has 



22 Science of Education 

come through experience; but the extension of pro- 
fessional preparation as a condition precedent to teach- 
ing has, in the cities and towns at least, more than 
kept pace with the increase in the number of teachers. 
Many systems now will employ no inexperienced or un- 
trained teacher. Normal schools and smnmer classes, 
and extension courses, and university departments, are 
taxed to their full capacity to supply the demand for 
such teachers and to enrich the furnishing of teachers 
already in tlie work. Educational periodicals of the 
better sort and hundreds of professional study circles 
and clubs are patronized as never before. The concep- 
tion of the urgent need of such special equipment of 
the teacher is both intense and extensive. The lay 
influence reinforces the aspirations of teachers. Ofii- 
cial zeal in a like way is not unknown. Parents, once 
familiar with expert education, are not slow in reject- 
ing merely empirical school-keeping. The rural com- 
munities, even, are coming to recognize that if men 
need a special training to breed and manage profitably 
the stock of the farm, much more must it be true of 
those who are to manage and bring to profitable matu- 
rity the boys and girls of their homes. Education in 
the full meaning of the term is the one interest of 
supreme importance and universal concern. It touches 
all families and every individual in a vital way. The 
school is the institutional expression for this solicitude. 
The teachers of these schools (of every sort and grade) 
constitute in the concrete the professional membership. 
With increasing clearness the services of this institu- 



Professions and Trades 23 

tion are receiving public recognition as of the greatest 
importance to the state and society in general. 

There should be noted also the current growing de- 
mand for teachers who, occupying whatever position, 
have also larger academic qualifications. The meagre 
scholastic discipline of the great body of teachers prom- 
ises little for their professional recognition. Both to 
make the teaching effective and to justify his claim to 
a place among the professions the teacher must have a 
considerable margin of scholarship and scholarly cult- 
ure and the student habit away beyond the immediate 
academic requirements of instruction. Theoretically, 
this holds for the traditional professions; practically, 
for a discouragingly large per cent, of certain of them, 
the requirement is a dead letter. The proportion of 
teachers, also, in elementary schools who have included 
a college training in their equipment for the work is 
embarrassingly small, but has appreciably increased 
within a generation. High-school instructors in all of 
the cities, even those of the third and fourth grade, are 
college-bred, perhaps by a small majority. In this 
respect the influence of the colleges upon all the lower 
schools has been felt in a very practical and effective 
way. 

Altogether unsatisfactory as the situation is in cer- 
tain respects, there is much encouragement in the out- 
look. An element of permanence has been introduced 
in the better tenure of office of the teachers and the 
longer school terms. In all of the larger cities the 
salaries have been considerably advanced in a decade. 



24 Science of Education 

Both influences will, in time, be felt in the larger town 
and municipal systems. In a few places there has been 
an increase in the relative number of male teachers, 
which again adds to the permanence of the member- 
ship. About 250 colleges and universities out of 480 
such institutions in the United States report courses for 
the training of teachers, more than forty-two per cent, 
of whose students were men. There is still much to be 
desired in the way of making teaching an attractive 
career for a body of membership that will give it a 
permanent following, and so a recognized professional 
status. The transiency of service and the very meagre 
learning of a large body of teachers, added to the alto- 
gether inadequate living returns, complicate the prob- 
lem. The first and second of these lie with teachers 
themselves to correct ; the last, with the lay officials and 
the general public. 



CHAPTER ni 
EDUCATION AND THE ALLIED ARTS 

To understand a science of education there must 
first be determined the essential nature and conditions 
of the educational process. Hence the present chapter. 

To this end it is needed first to discriminate roughly 
certain of the terms freely used by teachers and the 
ideas underlying those terms, that they may be used 
intelligently. Among the more important of these are : 
(1) Teaching, (2) Pedagogy, (3) Pedagogics, (4) 
Education. Kindred terms also that are often mis- 
used are schooling, learning, scholarship, knowledge, 
information, character, discipline, etc. It is not easy 
to be understood when speaking critically of the process 
underlying these and similar very familiar terms. 
One, of necessity, gives to each the content which his 
life experience suggests. The sceptic or free-thinker 
with the bias of his training gives to traditional and 
current theological phrases a meaning which a relig- 
ionist is far from accepting. Each thinks of them, and 
no doubt honestly, too, in accordance with his mental 
furnishing. IsTeither is likely to be understood until 
he can think the other's meaning into the other's lan- 
guage. In like manner the well-disposed layman sees 

35 



26 Science of Education 

in the preacher's words a different meaning from that 
used in the pulpit. The farmer variously construes 
the speech of the professional, and is himself misunder- 
stood in turn. Employer and employee, because of a 
divergence of interests or life training, or both, use the 
phraseology of industrialism with often contradictory, 
and generally unlike, meanings. Similarly with the 
teacher; the simple words of a common vocabulary 
even are used by him bearing a content but vaguely 
apprehended, and maybe differently used by the pupil. 
As a consequence the pupil is as often misinterpreted 
by the teacher — the word which the child employs be- 
ing construed by him with his meaning, not the child's. 
After the child has acquired a vocabulary fairly ade- 
quate to his life wants, education — even school educa- 
tion — consists largely in giving a fuller, or new, or 
corrected content to these familiar words, as well as 
giving him altogether new ideas through new exjieri- 
ences, for which he acquires new terms. The teacher 
may fairly be held responsible for putting the child's 
meaning into the child's words as a common ground 
upon which to build his corrected notion; the child, on 
the other hand, must be educated up to putting into his 
own words the teacher's meaning or learning's content. 
Between two persons who engage in any mutual com- 
munication there must, of course, be a common lan- 
guage; but the common ground of intercourse is the 
meaning underlying the language, not the symbols 
alone, of speech or manner. 

So, in a somewhat similar sense, if the author is to 



Education and the Allied Arts 27 

be understood, his meaning must be used in interpret- 
ing his words. Let it be said here, therefore, as it 
will be said many times in the following pages, that 
what is being here considered is education, and not 
schooling; the process of maturing and acquiring effi- 
ciency; of knowing how, and being able, and disposed, 
to live, and live more abundantly; not merely or nar- 
rowly the learning of books. This latter has its place 
as one of the instruments of furthering and directing 
education to wise and wholesome ends. But it is not 
education, it is a tool only; sometimes the best tool, 
upon occasion an inferior one. 

Education, then, may be characterized broadly as 
the generic process which in the individual is called 
" development " ; in the race, civilization. Without the 
former the latter would not be. The improvement of 
some, of a considerable number, and, in a general way, 
of all of the individuals of the race is necessary if the 
race is to advance. The imequal development of the 
constituent members, and their often antagonistic and 
obstructive gro^vths, make the civilizing process slow, 
inconstant, and wayward. It is one of the great prob- 
lems of schooling how to bring all the youth, and the 
adults too, under the wholesome influences of a far- 
seeing and provident training. This is the problem 
that faced Charlemagne and King Alfred, and the 
great rulers of all times and nations, as their purposes 
looked toward the manhood of their subjects. But this 
development goes on whether it be consciously directed 
or not. Boys grow to men, girls come to womanhood. 



28 Science of Education 

Individual experiences accumulate, life becomes more 
complex. Responsibilities increase. They must be 
met. An adult future must be provided for. Toil, in 
some sort, is the portion of each. In the effort to adjust 
himself to the changing conditions adjustment becomes 
easier. Resourcefulness increases, and the more re- 
sourceful survive, and, in perpetuating themselves, per- 
petuate this quality. The art of living with others is 
acquired, and, in time, living upon a little higher plane. 
Life becomes safer, because living is more considerate. 
Tools of learning are acquired, and they multiply. By 
the term " Education," as here used, is meant this 
process of maturing, coming to adulthood, in all that 
makes for efficiency and happiness. Knowledge of the 
sciences and language and history and mathematics 
helps to assure these results. But education is growth, 
not accumulation, or, at best, growth through accumu- 
lation and the using of experience. It means the 
developing of power and interest from step to step — 
not a static condition of the mind at any stage. 

Being a correlate of civilization, an insight into the 
nature of education may be had from the study of the 
history — culture and conduct history — of a people in 
their rise from primitive conditions to successively 
higher grades of efficiency and comfort. Teachers may, 
with profit, study the development of art in the race, 
and conduct, and ethics, and industry, and conventional 
forms for an understanding of the educational process 
in the individual. Literature, which, being a form of 
fine art, is the effort of the race to express its ideals 



Education and tJie Allied Arts 29 

of life and conduct and faith, is particularly helpful. 
Here may be found the refined essence of educational 
doctrine. Taken historically, the evolution of man's 
ideals is apparent. His conception of these ideals, the 
conditions for their attainment, and the developing use 
of the means at hand in the several periods — all reveal 
a gradual becoming that is the essence of the educa- 
tional process. What is known as the culture-epoch 
theory of schooling will come up for its own considera- 
tion elsewhere.* It is sufficient here to say that this 
theory is valuable, not so much for guidance in teach- 
ing, as useful in directing one's studies in the nature 
of education. Their results lie well behind the prac- 
tise of the art of instruction, and give color to it 
indirectly only and through the underlying doc- 
ine. 

Pedagogics as here used is the science that explains 
and accounts for this educational process in the indi- 
vidual or the philosophy of his development. It is 
generic and comprehensive. In a sense it is, as con- 
cerns the individual, the science which corresponds with 
the science of history, if history is made to include all 
of mankind's congregate acts of conduct that have saved 
themselves in human institutions. In this sense the 
science of history is an accounting for great institu- 
tional changes through a knowledge of the social and 
personal forces that have made for social development 
and an organization of these into a system. So the 
science of education — Pedagogics — is that body of doc- 

* See Chapter xxtI, 



30 Science of Education 

trine that seeks to explain tlie nature of man as a 
developing creature, the motives and conditions in- 
volved in his maturing, and the social and personal 
factors that enter into the problem. The materials of 
this science, and the end to which they are used, are 
different from the materials and purposes comprised 
in a science of teaching. The former might exist inde- 
pendently of the schools ; the latter, not. That implies 
an environing world of happenings and certain aggres- 
sive instincts; this, both these and a teacher. That is 
generic and has a philosophical interest even to the 
layman ; this is technical, and concerns only, or chiefly, 
one profession. This has to do with one institution, 
that with life in several institutions, under the conduct 
codes which man has evolved through successive gen- 
erations. The one is specific and professional, the 
other cultural. 

Pedagogy may be regarded as this narrower science 
of teaching, or the science of " directed " education. 
This refers to the principles that underlie the art — 
man's art of giving direction to this educational proc- 
ess, or reinforcing nature's efforts at educating man. 
The science of teaching takes for granted much which 
the science of education has worked out. It adds its 
own dicta concerning the machinery of the school, the 
means to be employed, the sequence of exercises, selec- 
tion of material, the mode of procedure, the conditions 
of training, habit-forming, etc. It involves all matters 
in which purposeful exercises are used to fix the 
amount and character and shape the order of this indi- 



Education and the Allied Arts 31 

vidiial growth. The science of teaching will make con- 
sideration of the nature of the child, as to instincts, 
capacity, and habits, as these react upon the work of 
the school; and of his home surroundings and social 
connections, for the same reason. Pedagogy is of 
primary concern to the teacher as a teacher. The 
attempt to follow its dictates is an effort to make teach- 
ing something more than an empirical art — to make 
its aims and steps scientific. It leaves the " rule of 
thumb " procedure and seeks to rest the art upon valid 
and sufiicient reasons. Nothing is longer done by 
chance or just because it has been done so. Teaching 
is made thoughtful, and the reflection is upon the prin- 
ciples that justify, or explain, or condemn the art. It 
is not less but more an art, often a fine art, as it be- 
comes rational ; all the more effective, as it has in it 
more thought, and this thought accords with the real 
nature of the educational process and the nature of 
learning. 

Teaching is the practice of principles set forth in 
Pedagogy. It is much more difficult to do things well 
than merely to know how. An intelligent practice of 
a well-founded art, any art, is a great achievement. 
All persons respect efficiency, the ability and the habit 
of doing things well ; and all the more if the things 
done are difficult of achievement. Incidental factors 
enter into the doing that do not, of right, appear in 
the theory. Moods of the child and the teacher, physi- 
cal conditions of the weather and the material sur- 
roundings and equipment, incidents of the home and 



32 Science of Education 

social life, biases of race and domestic and conventional 
training, the requirements of the particular system 
in which one is engaged — all modify the teaching art. 
Because any one, or several, or all of these are ignored 
or badly interpreted, the teaching may be otherwise 
good in theory and unavailing in practice. Other 
things being equal, whether it be in the achievement 
artistic or clumsy will depend in large measure upon 
whether these accidental conditions have been taken 
into wise consideration or not. They have little place 
in a science of teaching, but have a large significance 
in its art. An urgent need in the school-room to-day 
is not merely teachers who know more of educational 
theor)^, but those who make daily and studied effort 
to have this accustomed practice conform to the highest 
insight they have — whether much or little — into the 
working meanings of the doctrine of their profession; 
not teaching, however good, in traditional ways only, 
but thoughtful teaching, personally critical of one's 
requirements and directions ; that one shall be able to 
give a reason for, or a reasonable justification of one's 
practice. In every department of art the practice is 
subject to the weakening encroachments of habit ; and 
the teacher, dealing as he does with the manifoldness 
of spirit, has constant need of a frequent revision of 
her doing. The accidental and individual conditions 
must receive their share of the teacher's attention in 
the school life. 

Any training of teachers that stops short of testing 
the theory of intending applicants by much and thought- 



Education and the Allied Arts 33 

ful practice is partial, if not worse. The immediate 
concern of tlie teaclier, once in the school, is this teach- 
ing act, this practice. His primary interest should 
be in the soundness of the principles underlying the 
act. The latter must dominate the practice without 
being themselves consciously held. ISTo teaching should 
be called good in which the theory is obtrusive, even to 
the teacher's mind ; neither may it be regarded as good 
if it be merely empirical or traditional. 

It will be apparent from the preceding discussion 
that none of these terms characterize the educational 
process, though they all bear upon it. So of schooling, 
learning, and scholarship; often even knowledge and 
information ; sometimes character and discipline ; — 
they are terms that name mental or spiritual products or 
qualities, that connote the school, and more or less of 
directed training, and so become tools or signs of edu- 
cation, but nothing more. " Education," says Presi- 
dent Eliot, "is neither knowledge nor learning; it 
means a love of knowledge and a capacity for learn- 
ing." The impulse to know whereof we speak, and to 
fix the province of education, has resulted in various 
characterizations of education, its aim and conditions, 
some of which are brought together here in the follow- 
ing list. In general, these are the studied statements 
of men whose opinions are worthy of respect. As an 
aid in understanding the nature of education as a 
process, these accepted historic and often-quoted defini- 
tions may be helpfully examined and compared in the 
light of the preceding pages. Many others might be 



34 Science of Education 

added to these, and all of them critically valued by the 
thoughtful teachers. 



Education Characterized by the Masters 

1. What sculpture is to the block of marble, educa- 
tion is to the human soul. — Addison. 

2. The true aim of education is the attainment of 
happiness through perfect virtue. — Aristotle. 

3. Education includes the efforts made of set pur- 
pose to train men in a particular way ; more especially, 
the labor of professional educators, or school-masters. — 
Bain. 

4. Education is the sum of the reflective efforts, by 
which we aid nature in the development of the physi- 
cal, intellectual, and moral faculties of man; in view 
of his perfection, his happiness, and his social distinc- 
tion. — Compayre. 

5. Education is a development of the whole man. — 
Comenius. 

6. Education is not a preparation for life; it is life. 
— Dewey. 

7. The end of education is to train away all im- 
pediment, and leave only pure power. — Emerson. 

8. Education, in instruction and training, originally, 
and in its first principles, is necessarily passive, watch- 
fully and protectively following, not dictatorial, not 
forcibly interfering. — Froebel. 

9. The object of an education is the realization of a 
faithful, pure, inviolate, and hence holy life. — Froebel. 



Education and the Allied Arts 35 

10. The primary principle of education is the deter- 
mination of the pupil to self-activity. — Hamilton. 

11. The end of education is to produce a well-bal- 
anced many-sidedness of interest. — Herhart. 

12. Whatever influence man's environment (ethical 
relations and natural surroundings) has upon his native 
capacities and faculties, to occasion them to grow into 
powers or habits, is called education. — Hoose. 

13. Education is the instruction of intellect in the 
laws of nature; under which name I include, not 
merely things and their forces, but men and their ways ; 
and the fashioning of the affections and the will into 
an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with 
their laws. — Huxley. 

14. Education is the organization of acquired habits 
of conduct and tendencies of behavior. — James. 

15. It is the purpose of education so to exercise the 
faculties of the mind that the infinitely varied experi- 
ences of after-life may be observed and reasoned upon 
with the best effect. — Jevons. 

16. The purpose of education is to train children, 
not with reference to their success in the present (life) 
state of society, but to a better possible state, in 
accordance with an ideal conception of humanity. 
— Kant. 

17. Education gives more quickly and easily that 
which one might have developed from within himself. 
— Lessing. 

18. The object of education is preparation for more 
effective service in church and state. — Luther. 



36 Science of Education 

19. The attainment of a sound mind in a sound body 
is the end of education. — Locke. 

20. Education is the art of forming men, not spe- 
cialists, — Montaigne. 

21. Education includes the culture which each gen- 
eration purposely gives to those who are to be its suc- 
cessors in order to qualify them for at least keeping 
up, and, if possible, raising, the improvement that has 
been attained. — Mill. 

22. I call a complete and generous education that 
which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and mag- 
nanimously all the offices, both public and private, of 
peace and war. — Milton. 

23. Education is not the storing of knowledge, but 
the development of power. — Orcutt. 

24. The function of education is to assist and direct 
the processes of physical and mental growth during the 
formative periods of childhood and youth. — Painter. 

25. Education consists in giving to the body and the 
soul all the perfection of which they are susceptible. 
—Plato. 

26. The end of education and the instruction of 
youth is to make men better; not simply more intelli- 
gent, but more moral. — Plato. 

27. Education means a natural, progressive, and 
systematic development of all the powers. — Pesta- 
lozzi. 

28. The main purpose of education is to permit the 
individual to participate in the conscious knowledge 
(life) of the race. — Payne. 



Education and the Allied Arts 37 

29. Education aims at the realization of the typical 
man. — Payne. 

30. The realization of all the possibilities of human 
growth and development is education. — ParJcer. 

31. True education is the presentation of the con- 
ditions necessary for the evolution of personality into 
freedom . — Parker. 

32. The change through which the mind passes is 
an evolution; and the process by which this change is 
brought about, and which we call education, is develop- 
ment. — Palmer. 

33. The aim of education is the forming of a com- 
plete man, skilled in art and industry. — Rabelais. 

34. It is the business of education to develop the 
ideal prize man. — Richter. 

35. Education is the shaping of the individual life 
by the process of nature, the rhythmical movement of 
national customs, and the might of destiny, in which 
each one finds limits set to his arbitrary will. — Rosen- 
hranz. 

36. It is the nature of education to assist in pro- 
ducing that only which the subject would strive most 
earnestly to develop for himself if he had a clear idea 
of himself. — Rosenkranz. 

37. Education is the process by which the indi- 
vidual man elevates himself to the species. — Rosen- 
kranz. 

38. Education is the influencing of man by man, 
and has for its end to lead him to actualize himself 
through his own efforts. — Rosenkranz. 



38 Science of Education 

39. Education is nothing but the formation of hab- 
its. — Rousseau. 

40. The aim of education is to dispel error and to 
discover truth. — Socrates. 

41. How to live completely; this is the one great 
thing which education has to teach. — Spencer. 

42. In education success is to be achieved only by 
rendering our measures subservient to that spontaneous 
unfolding which all minds go through in their progress 
toward maturity. — Spencer. 

43. Education is the designed influence of society 
upon the individual, concentrated and reduced to a 
systematic fonn. — Sully. 

44. A child is educated by what he does for himself 
and by himself. — Swift. 

45. I do not know what remains to be desired in 
the ordinary purpose of life, if the body be sound 
and in high health, and the mind be alert, — Isaac 
Taylor. 

46. The end of education is triple: (1) to develop 
the mental faculties, (2) to communicate knowledge, 
and (3) to mould character. — Thiry. 

47. A pupil comes to us a bundle of inherited capaci- 
ties and tendencies, labelled from the indefinite past 
to the indefinite future, and he makes his transit from 
the one to the other through the education of the pres- 
ent time. The object of that education is, or ought to 
be, to provide wise exercise for his capacities, wise 
direction for his tendencies, and through this exercise 
and this direction to furnish his mind with such knowl- 



Education and the Allied Arts 39 

edge as may contribute to the usefulness, the beauty, 
and the nobleness of his life. — Tyndall. 

48. Education means the universal distribution of 
extant knowledge. — Ward. 

49. Education is any process or act which results in 
knowledge or power or skill. — White. 

It will be apparent at once to the thoughtful that 
a considerable number of these definitions, perhaps 
most of them, are definitions of school education, gen- 
erally idealized. Distinctly such are numbers 17, 24, 
and 43. They all refer, as do some of the others, to 
directed education. Many of them are given in terms 
of the object or aim of education, as numbers 7, 11, 
16, 28, 49. Others characterize education in terms of 
the instrumentalities used, as shown in numbers 12, 
21, and 35. Less than half of them come from school- 
men ; most of them from philosophers and theorists, 
or literary men. The business men of to-day, of any 
day perhaps, would characterize education in terms of 
one or another of its products ; generally as some form 
of practical skill, occasionally as right habits. Speak- 
ing broadly, however, most of those given agree in the 
conviction that the end of education is in the use made 
of knowledge, rather than any amount or kind of 
knowledge itself ; that it is abundant life, not abundant 
scholarship; in growth, not in any particular skill; 
that it consists in an evolution, not in acquisition, or 
life through scholarship; skill accompanied by growth, 
or acquisition in terms of evolution. 



40 Science of Education 

In the inteT]3retatioii of education thinkers and 
writers may be classified into schools, representing dif- 
ferent views, just as theologians may be so grouped, 
or physicians, or philosophers, or scientists, or histo- 
rians. This will usually depend upon the emphasis 
placed upon individual initiative, the inner native 
urgency that demands recognition. For example, one 
school of writers and teachers holds that school educa- 
tion must be prescri j)tive ; the opposition that it is 
passive and following. Froebel, in another wording 
of the definition given in 8 above, says : ''Education in 
instruction and training, originally and in its first prin- 
ciples, is necessarily passive, following (only guarding 
and protecting), not prescriptive, categorical, and in- 
terfering." Bain, on the other hand, says (ISTo. 3) : 
" Education includes the efforts made of set purpose to 
train men in a particular way." And Addison : " What 
sculpture is to the block of marble, education is to the 
human soul." Of the first class is Hamilton (No. 10), 
who would have education to mean " the determination 
of the pupil to self-activity " ; or Spencer, who would 
have " our measures subservient to the spontaneous un- 
folding which all minds go through in their progress 
toward maturity." Of the second class is Sully, whose 
definition, " Education is the designed influence of 
society upon the individual, concentrated and reduced 
to a systematic form," reduces the child's initiative to 
a minimum ; and Ward, who makes education to mean 
" the universal distribution of extant knowledge." Of 
the two schools the one represents this education as 



Education and the Allied Arts 41 

being creative, the other concessive; the doctrine of the 
one is positive, the other tentative. The one emphasizes 
courses and prescriptive exercises; the other, electives 
and options. The idea in the one is more or less archi- 
tectural; the other concedes much to freedom and 
diversity. With the former the teacher is the deter- 
mining factor in a directed education ; with the latter, 
the pupil. These exalt the disposition to do, and know, 
and enjoy; those, some particular doing or knowing or 
enjoyment. 

In general, the trend of current thought is away from 
an unyielding prescription, the dictations of authority, 
uniform courses, and the traditional formal disciplines ; 
toward a dominating respect for the child's initiative, 
elastic programmes, credit for voluntary work, a freer 
play of the child's instincts and constitutional biases 
of growth. The system counts for less, perhaps, the 
learner for more. Reliance upon class rank, and fig- 
ures of advancement, and measured and recorded prog- 
ress is depreciating. Growth is seen to be individual, 
and education is an individual process. Guidance 
must be of the one, not the group. Service here can 
have little wholesale market. 

But, as appears from the great definitions by great 
minds in all ages, there is a clear recognition of the 
fact that education, whether of school or of life, looks 
toward socializing the individual. " The main pur- 
pose of education," says W. H. Payne, " is to permit 
the individual to participate in the conscious knowl- 
edge (life) of the race." It is a familiar thought of 



42 Science of Education 

Dr. Han-is that " all education is an attempt to over- 
come the isolation of the undeveloped individual; or 
to emancipate the individual child from his isolation." 
Elsewhere his phrase is " to give each person in the 
social whole the net results of the experience of all his 
fellows." From a very different point of view, but 
with equal emphasis and cogency, Dr. Dewey has been 
wont to say: ''The primary fimction of education is 
sociaL" 

By all of which is meant simply that an educated 
man is able and disposed to perform well his function 
as an organic part of the society to which he belongs; 
a patriotic citizen of his coimtry; an efficient member 
of his own state ; a good neighbor ; a wise father, ready 
and equipped to bear his share of civic responsibility 
in his social group; an interested, active, helpful mem- 
ber of the several great institutions, under the social 
codes worked out by the race. 

Once more, in most of the definitions it appears that 
education is regarded as a process of unfolding ; an evo- 
lution, not an involution, reinforced by exercises care- 
fully graded to suit the child's development. Stein's 
definition (" Education is the harmonious and equable 
evolution of hmnan powers"), Pestalozzi's (27), and 
Palmer's (32), are only representative of a group of 
definitions of this class that for a generation have been 
very popular. They stand for a real distinction in 
school doctrine, and are worthy of recognition. 

Summarizing freely what has been given in the pre- 
ceding pages, it appears that education may be viewed 



Education and the Allied Arts 43 

as a process; it may be viewed from the side of its 
products; it may be thought of as native or spontane- 
ous ; or as prescribed and directed ; as an art, having 
its corresponding science; and finally, in terms of its 
instrumentalities — i.e., the school or other environment. 
It is essentially a process, native and life-long. Pre- 
scriptive exercises may further or hasten the process, 
and a clear view of legitimate passing results may make 
the guidance more rational and wholesome. 



CHAPTER IV 

TENTATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
EDUCATION 

Little attempt has been, or will be, made to for- 
mulate exclusive definitions of education, though this 
and the following chapter are given to a description 
of the process, through stating and discussing its more 
or less obvious characters. The more important of 
these are here enumerated and considered. As statCf- 
ments of the distinguishing features of education they 
are approximate and tentative. They rather point out 
the striking qualities of the process than fix its limits 
with any exclusiveness. Indeed, the entire list is de- 
scriptive rather than definitive, tentative rather than 
dogmatic, basic rather than final, and submitted as 
approximate. 

Primarily, be it observed that education is a mental 
fact. Modem thought has moved far from the once 
ruling dictum : " There is nothing great in the world 
but man, and nothing great in man but mind." In 
the world other creations are equally great in their 
way; and in man, the body, as the habitation of the 
soul, has its own divine appointments. Without here 
discussing the priority of either, or their intricate 

44 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 45 

mutual dependencies, and resting upon the conclusions 
of modem science as to the physiological accompani- 
ments of all mental action, it still remains true that 
the processes called mental are, in thought, distinct 
from those called physical, and that education is con- 
cerned with the former; i.e., it is a maturing of the 
spiritual powers. 

Through training the finger may be given a particu- 
lar skill, the body a fine grace, the muscular frame 
great strength, the eye sharp discriminations of light 
and shade, and, in general, the organism made a choice 
accompaniment of the mind. The fingers have their 
memory in the executions of facile and delicate touch; 
the body its traditions of elegance and dignity; the 
strong, athletic frame its indomitable purpose and ag- 
gressive will; the special senses an easy adjustment 
of precision and alertness and fine perspective; but 
whether it be bodily grace, or acute senses, or an ath- 
letic frame, or a vigorous habit, it will be granted, 
doubtless, that the essential fact in each instance is not 
a physical, but a mental one. The value of the exer- 
cise is practically commensurate with the intelligent 
purpose put into it. So much thought, so much profit 
Purposeful doing which results in time through repe- 
tition in automatic doing, was educative in the process 
to the degree that thought was put into it. All calis- 
thenics and gymnastics, Delsarte training, and indi- 
vidual and class evolutions are worth so much as, in 
their translation into habits, intelligence and personal 
effort have entered into them. But all of them are 



46 Science of Education 

illustrations of trainingj rather than of education; a 
change that results in fixed states of skill, rather than 
active biases of the mind that are themselves forces 
looking to further change. 

Notwithstanding there are these physiological impli- 
cations in most if not all of the functioning of the 
mind, the progress of the mind toward maturity, rather 
than that of the body and bodily organs, is the pre- 
eminently great fact. The increasingly fuller func- 
tioning of the powers of the mind, the more certain 
control of the mental processes, the bringing of more 
and more of -one's experiences into use for living, the 
better integration of these mental furnishings, the tak- 
ing on of more and more definite interests, the greater 
openness of mind as the view becomes wider — these 
are of the nature of education. They are mental as 
discriminated from the narrowly physiological changes. 
The body also matures, but chiefly through taking on 
more or less fixed states of efficiency. The mind, too, 
reveals in various ways this quality, and so shows its 
fitness for training. But, in a marked way, its equi- 
librium is a moving one, and the possibilities of im- 
provement continuous through life. Every vantage 
ground gained by the mind is a ground to be surren- 
dered. Every effect worked becomes a cause of further 
effects. The " stream of consciousness " is a force 
making for change, and itself subject to change, 
throughout its course. Education is this advance 
toward and through successively higher stages of men- 
tal enrichment, of eSiciency and happiness. It is not 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 47 

only a process, and not alone a process of maturing, 
but the process tkrough which the mind goes in its 
approach toward maturity. The emphasis is upon the 
spiritual life, and the change is a spiritual change. 

Education is thus to be regarded as a process rather 
than in terms of its products. Speaking popularly, 
however, and in the phrase of a majority of the defi- 
nitions given, education may be thought of also in 
terms of its products or in terms of its instrumentali- 
ties. It is a sort of metonymy in thought, whereby, for 
the thing meant, an accompaniment is substituted. 
Conceding for the moment that this something called 
education " is life rather than a preparation for life," 
i.e., that it is primarily a process, there are, neverthe- 
less, certain products that are of so great moment that, 
in one degree or another, they may be considered as 
signs of the culture change. Such are scholarship, in 
varying degrees; skill as usually understood, or the 
power to turn learning to account; character, in the 
sense of good character; discipline, the formal dis- 
cipline of the schools, etc. Most of these are con- 
comitants of any real education, whether received un- 
der formal instruction or not. Some degree of scholar- 
ship follows as a matter of course. Through contact 
with scholarly people one would come to share some- 
thing of the common possessions and the common spirit 
of culture. 'No one, however bookishly trained, is 
entirely devoid of the power to utilize his knowledge. 
Life itself compels certain adaptations that make a 
degree of efficiency. Along with the improvement in 



48 Science of Education 

learning, the race has appreciably raised its standards 
of personal and social behavior. With all enlargement 
of the human power to create and enjoy, has gone a 
convergence of one's powers, a grip upon his experi- 
ence that is the essence of mental discipline. But these 
are not education — only passing and more or less shift- 
ing products of education. Indeed, one may have 
attained one or another of them, and still be little 
deserving of the title, " an educated man." One may 
be well educated and be almost totally wanting in cer- 
tain of these generally trustworthy signs. 

In popular phrase, an educated person is one of large 
scholarshi]3 ; and, conversely, a scholarly man is there- 
fore supposed to be educated. In general, perhaps, 
both statements are fairly true. Of course, by scholar- 
ship is meant much more than abundant information. 
Not every mind well stored, even, is scholarly. Infor- 
mation is good; knowledge is better; but with both 
there must go along the student habit. Scholarship 
of any degree is accompanied by a more or less fine 
taste for learning, a love for the culture that has lived. 
It is a much to be coveted and legitimate object, rather 
product, of education. It stands for abundant life, and 
habitual touch with large issues; in thinking, a famil- 
iar use of the abiding interests of the race, and an 
ability to take the race's point of view in dealing with 
these interests. From the plain of the schools, large 
scholarship implies a familiar acquaintance with the 
world's achievements in thought and affairs; in art 
and literature and philosophy; in government and in- 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 49 

vention; in the conditions and stages and meanings of 
social progress. One wonld scarcely be regarded as 
scholarly, in any high degree, who knows no language 
but his own, or whose acquaintance with social and 
institutional and ethical movements and forces are 
limited to his time and people. 

But there are instances of men highly educated who 
had not this acquaintance with books in so large a way, 
who were not versed in the world's philosophies, or its 
art, its historic religions, the stages in its material 
progress, or in other than the vernacular language. 
High scholarship greatly re-enforces an education other- 
wise attained, but it is not an exclusive essential. One 
need not doubt that Abraham Lincoln was highly edu- 
cated, while conceding great inequalities and inade- 
quacy of scholarship. Certain of the " Captains of 
Industry," while wanting the formal learning of the 
schools, are yet quite equal to the emergencies of an 
orderly and highly developed social and industrial and 
political and even cultural life by which they are sur- 
rounded and of which they are organic parts. They 
are men of public spirit; they have faith in schools 
and learning. Historically, not much of the race's 
culture, speaking generally, has converged upon them 
individually, but they see its results in society, and 
take account of these results in their lives, and formu- 
late and administer their policies regardful of this body 
of culture as a world-force. Their own lives may be 
rich in all that makes life worth living — in heart-cult- 
ure, faith in manliness and moral heroism and human 



50 Science of Education 

achievement and the sanities of right living, and joy in 
noble deeds, and the touch of the beautiful in conduct 
and art. However it may have come about, tbey are 
efficiently educated, though in possession of little or 
nothing of the formal culture of the schools. Many a 
man, also, occupying a subordinate and relatively un- 
important industrial or social position, has yet acquired, 
and exhibited in his daily life, like habits of thought- 
fulness, soundness of judgment, a keen foresight, in- 
terest in public affairs, a personal following, the heart 
and manners of the " gentleman born," and a rich 
intellectual and spiritual life, with so little schooling 
as not to be counted. There may be a rich and effective 
individual and social life to which the more abundant 
scholarship would be only a doubtful supplement. 

Wliat is kno^vn in both current thought and tradition 
as the " discipline of the mind " that comes from an 
active contact with the centres of learning, from years 
of study in libraries and lecture-rooms and laboratories, 
may be found also, and not infrequently, among those 
who have kno^\Ti less ; who have not had or used the 
privileges of these established agencies of culture. The 
disciplined mind, the student habit, the ability to bring 
to bear upon new problems the powers and experiences 
which one has, to attack and resolve the conditions one 
meets, is doubtless, and often, acquired through these 
formal means ; but that the like effective resourceful- 
ness, trained grip upon one's experience, and the habit 
of using the net conclusions of science in the prosecu- 
tion of one's plans may be, frequently are, accom- 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 51 

plished through effort outside the schools, can scarcely 
be doubted. These qualities, in some degree, are essen- 
tial to all true education, but in no exclusive or peculiar 
sense belong to the results of formal learning. This 
admission in no way detracts from the credit and dig- 
nity of the schools, but implies a sound recognition of 
the true nature of education as generic — a native and 
constitutional process, for whose furthering an active 
contact with life outside the school may contribute, not 
less than the learning of the study. The essential fact 
would seem, therefore, to be this achieving and matur- 
ing process, rather than any static condition of scholar- 
ship or discipline or skill or maturity. Education is 
to be conceived as dynamic, as an aggressive becoming, 
not as any kind or amount of trained product. 

A similar interpretation attaches to what is known 
as good character as an end or result of education. It 
is certainly one of the by-products of all wholesome 
education. However, it is not the being good, but 
rather the growth in goodness, that constitutes an edu- 
cation ; not honesty, but increasing honesty ; not truth- 
fulness, but growing truthfulness ; continued growth in 
grace, and good will, and serious purpose, and clean 
intention, and unselfish interests. Good character is a 
very relative term. ISTowhere along the upward way 
may one be said to have attained the " good character " 
which is supposed to be the end of education, and which 
absolves one from an obligation to come to yet higher 
levels. Here, as in the intellectual life, any stage or 
degree of attainment is only a step in the series from 



52 Science of Education 

point to point of which the movement is an educative 
process. The conception of the German philosopher 
seems to be valid. In a pedagogical, not less than 
a moral sense, das ewige besser is the watchword 
of the teacher for the child ; not the good, but the ever- 
lasting better; not a trained and fixed, but an improv- 
ing, sense of personal responsibility and initiative ; not 
life on high planes, but on successively higher planes, 
and more abundantly. Dr. Holmes, in his Breakfast- 
table series, affirms that the really " important thing 
is not where we stand, but which way we face," and 
it might have been added, the rate at which we are 
moving. Speaking in terms of education, all points 
in this upward and forward journey are equally hon- 
orable as such. But to be facing up, and moving for- 
ward, on the lower levels, is both more honorable and 
more promising than any high attainment that merely 
holds its own or retrogrades. The only really essential 
factor is the growth that from any lower level carries 
one to a higher. A conception of personal responsi- 
bility, where before was indifference, in honesty or 
truthfulness or selfishness or civic relations, or the 
home or business life, or personal improvement, is a 
step forward and means growth, and is, in morals also, 
of the essential nature of education. The carriage- 
maker who protested that he was not merely making 
pretty good wagons, and insisted that every day he was 
making the best vehicle he knew how, was on the way 
to better ones for the future. " The good," as the 
eastern proverb phrases it, is, if one be content with 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 53 

it, " an enemy of the best," which should follow. 
Pedagogicallj, then, the one important thing is the 
process of growth, not the having achieved and hold- 
ing any attainment of goodness or honorable character 
or chastened life. 

Once more, education is not only a process, and a 
mental process, but is a rational process; i.e., one that 
implies intelligent foresight, the power to imagine dis- 
tant ends to be attained, and the use of suitable means 
to accomplish these ends ; the forming and holding of 
ideals in science and art and conduct; the power of 
purposeful, consecutive thinking. Along with these 
functions, man shares, with the lower animals, others 
also that lend themselves to the taking on of fixed ways 
of acting, repeating unthinkingly the original act, crys- 
tallizing in set ways the tendency of the mind to act 
as it has acted. In appealing to the mind's initiative, 
on the other hand, there is a recognition of its power, 
its tendency, to think the experience in a new way, as 
sustaining manifold relations other than those in the 
original act, and so using it in a new form, perhaps 
with new meanings. The former is training; the lat- 
ter, education. This gives resourcefulness and leads 
t« multiform experience and growth ; that, to uniform- 
ity of action and a fixed order. Both are subject to 
fairly well understood laws, and, under the appropriate 
stimulus, the resulting actions of each may, in a meas- 
ure, be predicted ; the specific acts, likely to result from 
a process of training, with great certainty. But the 
one equips the individual for following a familiar, 



54 Science of Education 

conventional, and prescribed order; the other for in- 
telligently meeting unfamiliar conditions. In the for- 
mer the mind reacts upon the stimulus as it has acted ; 
in the latter, there is, indirectly, only a reference to 
its previous procedure. 

Much of the work of the school is of the character 
of training; acquiring a knowledge of the symbols of 
experience, acquaintance with conventional forms of 
social and business intercourse, language, and the 
bodily movements, etc. There is no occasion to belittle 
the value of these acquirements; there would be little 
education without this function of the mind. But this 
is not education. It is a tool, a means ; but not a force 
for progress. Its primary function is to mechanize,, 
to enslave; not to liberate. Freedom comes through 
education; all advance in civilization and achievement. 
That gives skill in manufacture and administration, 
facility and grace in conduct and intercourse, perfec- 
tion of form and finish; this stimulates reflection, 
ingenuity, the free play of ideals and the creative fac- 
ulties. Training looks to specific ends; education to 
versatility. Education makes men; training, work- 
men. The steps in training are generally simple and 
easily acquired ; those of education, intricate and elu- 
sive. By training, men become experts in doing; by 
education, they are fitted to improve the doing. Each 
is the complement of the other. A high state of either 
stimulates to a development of the other. The highest 
education in the race is of little value unless there be 
the skill to apply it to the arts and purposes of life; 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 55 

the most perfect skill is lame that has not intelligent 
direction. Education is the rational process that makes 
the masterful possession of all needful knowledge and 
skill certain. 

Again, besides being a rational process, education 
is here characterized as natural. It is the native 
process of maturing, and is characteristic of the mind, 
as ripening is of the melon. The conditions of light, 
heat, moisture, a fruitful soil and good seed, are not 
more necessary to the vegetable than are right environ- 
ments and a sound mind to education. But education 
is not something which a teacher has and which is 
turned over to the child; it is not somewhat trans- 
ferred from one to another; it cannot be bought, or 
given, or bartered for, any more than ripeness is fur- 
nished by soil and climate. Given these conditions, 
the melon takes on the successive steps in its ripening; 
so, in using its environment, the individual matures. 
In the lapse of years, and through this spiritual touch 
with a stimulating environment, the boy becomes a 
man, the girl a woman, taking on adult interests, and 
new standards of conduct, and foresight, and self- 
appointed tasks, and a sense of responsibility, and a 
readier adjustment of personal behavior to the insti- 
tutional and conventional life. 

So inevitable is this change in the individual, espe- 
cially in the midst of a congregate life, that one would 
in a measure pass through most of these forms of 
maturing even if there were no schools. The process, 
surely, would be one of slow evolution ; the individuals 



56 Science of Education 

fittest for this group-life surviving, while others perish. 
It is obvious that this must have been the character of 
the race's development for many centuries before the 
times of directed education. Under this unconscious 
tuition some learned more, and some less, as is true 
to-daj; some became more self-helpful than others, 
more provident, more self-controlled, better informed, 
less selfish, more skilful and ingenious, more spiritually 
minded — just the qualities that the schools to-day seek 
to encourage. They may be encouraged because they 
are natural products of a maturing race, or a race com- 
posed of maturing members. The process by which 
they come is a natural process. It belongs to a man 
because he is a man. The tendency, whatever its origin, 
is now a human inheritance. Three things the schools 
may do: (1) shorten the period of acquiring the need- 
ful experience and maturity to the degree of reasonable 
self-helpf ulness ; (2) through the foresight of experi- 
enced persons fix the growth and the trend of experi- 
ence in right, wholesome directions; and (3) forestall 
the inequalities of training likely to come to one in the 
undirected process of evolution. But the most sys- 
tematic guidance can only follow the constitutional 
tendency, re-enforcing, guiding, emphasizing it; en- 
riching the years of youth by converging upon them 
manifold opportunities; and substituting the tried and 
abiding ideals of the race for the transient purposes 
and interests of the day. Definitions (8), (36), and 
(42), on preceding pages, emphasize this aspect of 
the problem. 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 57 

In another, and very important sense, the process 
here called education mnst be viewed as generic rather 
than as the development of any specific function or 
any number of functions. It does not mean, e.g., the 
enlarging and enriching of the memory only, or sepa- 
rately, but rather the maturing of the system of which 
the memory is an organic part ; not the judgment 
merely, but the life which the judgment serves. It 
does not mean to endow with a particular skill, but, 
through the effort to master some foi'm of doing, to 
become intelligent in undertaking other forms. It 
does mean much experience, and the habit of using it ; 
the refining of the senses; the habit of being inter- 
ested; much practice in discriminating the important 
from the unimportant; an increase in personal initia- 
tive. But this enriching of the memory, the knitting 
of the judgment, the bias towards painstaking doing, 
the habit of being interested, and of using the experi- 
ence one has, the training of the senses, the power to 
perceive and value the really vital factors in an expe- 
rience, and growth in personal initiative, may all, 
severally and in the aggregate, be accomplished through 
any one of several lines of training. It is probably no 
exaggeration to say that discipline in no one field of 
learning or group of subjects is necessary to maturing 
along any one of these lines. Without doubt some sub- 
jects are better fitted for the accomplishing of certain 
of these purposes than are others, just as certain tools 
of the mechanic are selected for one task, and others 
for a different one. And each, teacher or mechanic, 



58 Science of Education 

will, if wise, use the best tools at hand for the purpose. 
But, if wise again, neither will forget that not the 
tool, but the result, is the important element. A China- 
man or other foreigner may know nothing of the things 
' which our people generally know, and be unable to do 
the things which our people do, and yet be highly edu- 
cated. In the ancient days there were men and women 
effectively educated and equipped to handle the intri- 
cate problems of their times, of government and relig- 
ion and industry and war and diplomacy, even before 
the times of the so-called classic languages of the 
schools, before the advent of western civilization, before 
the beginnings of most that we now think important in 
literature, and government, and science, and industry. 
It is a matter of history that, in comparatively modem 
times, there have been, high in the counsels of the State, 
and of the Church, and of the school, and in the fields 
of industry, those who have had little of what is called 
scholarship, but who have been abundantly educated — 
educated to a high degree of eflficiency and personal 
accomplishments. Abraham Lincoln is only a more 
notable example of a considerable class. All of which 
means only, and is intended to mean, not that the learn- 
ing of the schools is not valid, or that it fails to justify 
itself, but that it is of the nature of education as such 
to compass originative thinking, alertness of mind, 
provident habits, the co-operative temper, and devotion 
to ideals. Wliatever the manner of acquisition, he who 
has these qualities and their kin is fairly educated, 
whatever he knows or doesn't know. In the nature of 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 59 

the mind, its acts are specific and limited ; but in pur- 
poses and effects, the results that are valuable as edu- 
cation are generic and comprehensive. It is thus set 
off, on tlie one side, from training, as has been men- 
tioned, which looks to some particular skill; and from 
mere scholarship, on the other, which exalts accumula- 
tion and possession. Both the skill and the scholarship 
are immensely valuable as products ; but they are, taken 
separately, but partial and unsatisfactory. Together, 
and reinforced by an unspoiled disposition to improve 
both, that tlie skill may be something more than dex- 
terity or adroitness, and the scholarship more than 
possession, they become unfailing accompaniments of 
the best or the least that deserves the name of ednca- 
tion. The artificer becomes more than a mechanic ; the 
thinker, more than a copyist; the teacher, more than 
a routine follower. The attainment of the higher 
levels implies resourcefulness beyond what has been 
learned ; the capacity for original vision and initiative, 
and the courage to believe in them. 



CHAPTER V 

TENTATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF EDUCA- 
TION (continued) 

As a corollary of much of what has been set down 
in preceding pages it follows that, far from being con- 
fined to the periods of childhood and youth, education 
is a lifelong process. Obviously, there are in each one's 
life times of more and of less active development. 
This is true of the years before twenty in most indi- 
viduals. But growth at no period entirely ceases, and 
the mind is ever curious and interested. There are 
instances, not a few, of marked and effective increase 
of most mental and spiritual powers, increase of re- 
sourcefulness, and business and cultural and moral 
adaptations, into and through middle life. The mani- 
fold agencies which society has devised for its improve- 
ment, not less than its pleasure, are evidence of a public 
recognition of this native tendency toward a continu- 
ance of certain kinds of growth through life. 

Without attempting to make the list complete, there 
may be named these non-school agencies of adult educa- 
tion : the various forms of school extension ; vacation 
and evening schools ; organized home readings ; the more 
than one hundred Chautauquas with their schools and 

60 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 61 

assemblies and circles and clubs; the lyceum under 
various names; correspondence schools, enrolling half 
a million students; university, college, and school ex- 
tension lecture courses ; the institutional church, with 
its academic and professional classes, gymnasia, and 
societies; the hundreds of public lectures and lecture 
courses in cities and villages, and even rural sections; 
the free public lectures maintained by certain city 
boards of education ; the different public reference and 
circulating libraries, with their numerous branch col- 
lections, reading-rooms, study-clubs, and reference- 
lists ; the thousands of private reading groups ; socie- 
ties, scientific, historical, philosophical, art, and liter- 
ary, national. State, and local, of men and women ; the 
millions of newspaper and magazine issues, with their 
volume and variety of matter ; the tons of Government 
publications upon matters of great historical, scientific, 
civic, and industrial interest; the numerous fraternal, 
professional, and social organizations, many of which 
furnish both entertainment and instruction in impor- 
tant ways; international, national. State, and local 
expositions, exhibitions, and fairs, for the showing and 
comparison of the products of human handiwork and 
achievement; the wealth of literature bearing upon 
hygiene and sanitation; the several guilds, industrial 
societies, and labor organizations, of recent rapid de- 
velopment and distinct and far-reaching influence; the 
systematic and incidental encouragement given to 
travel; the Young Men's and Young Women's Chris- 
tian Associations ; and, finally, the numerous municipal 



62 Science of Education 

and civic organizations, including commercial and busi- 
ness clubs, civic leagues in the cities, neighborhood 
improvement societies, national and local tree-planting 
and irrigation and public-park movements, art and 
landscape decoration societies, pioneer historical and 
patriotic societies, and the public and permanent com- 
memoration of historical places and personages, general 
and local public education societies, and the official 
reports and manuals of the respective State and local 
governments. 

The number of adult individuals in any common- 
wealth not reached by one or another or several of 
these forms of social effort is very small. In the 
aggregate the influence is large and rapidly extending. 
No man can come into frequent contact with his fel- 
lows in these organized ways, hear their words, and 
read their voluminous literature, and share their opin- 
ions and interests, and fail to be vitally influenced in 
his thinking, his belief, his conduct, and his efficiency. 
In our own country, of more than ordinarily free 
speech and the ready interchange of ideas among all 
classes, the universal reading habit and the opportunity 
afforded for class and group organization, these agencies 
become important factors in the aggregate training of 
citizenship. From birth to death no one is long free 
from their touch. The qualities that make for man- 
hood, and civic efficiency, and the refinements of cult- 
ure, and the attainment of industrial and professional 
skill, and ready and intelligent social co-operation, are 
stimulated and encouraged at every turn. Of all the 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 63 

millions of our adult population almost no one escapes 
altogether the aggressive moulding influence of these 
agencies. They are ever present. The touch of the 
schools is for a small part only of one's life. Through 
the manifold organizations which society has worked 
out, learning and the student habit and the maturing 
of powers, and the refinement of tastes and the multi- 
plication of interests, and growth in co-operation and 
the sharing of attainments, go on through most adult 
years of both manhood and womanhood. Much of all 
this is mere training, a fixing of habits, and sobering 
of life, and tempering of the passions, and checking of 
enthusiasms ; but much of it, also, is of the nature of 
real education — the enlarging of powers, adding to 
one's fruitful experience, the accumulation of interests, 
an increasing sense of personal and social responsibil- 
ity, devotion to the common welfare, contributions to 
the general intelligence, and an appreciation of per- 
sonal skill and effectiveness. All this implies not alone 
the possibility of education being furthered during the 
manhood period, but a positive and aggressive natural 
tendency to growth and increasing maturity during 
these years. Education is a life-long process. 

In a very pronounced and intelligible way, educa- 
tion is, further, a process that looks toward the inte- 
gration of experience; i.e., tlie organizing of one's 
experiences into a body of experience. Child interests 
are more or less scrappy; often intense, but usually 
disconnected. Few kinships are recognized among 
them as strong enough regularly to endow them with 



64 Science of Education 

common meaning. Thought and purpose easily pass 
from one to another. Each follows in its order as part 
of an occasioned sequence, rather than as a purposed 
association. The mind is filled with experiences that 
seem to have no established coalescence or subordina- 
tion. Their grouping upon occasion is by chance, and 
transient. Their inherent connections are not appar- 
ent. From one to another of them the child passes, 
not at will, but spontaneously. There is much remem- 
brance, but little recollection. Likes and dislikes, smiles 
and tears, interest and indifference, good and ill tem- 
per, follow each other and are intermingled, without 
let or hindrance, and with no consciousness of incon- 
gruity. This is the period of curiosity, and manifold 
interests, and the storing of the mind; information 
accumulates, growth is extensive. The horizon is being 
pushed out, and new fields attract, while yet the old 
has had only surface cultivation. Experiences are in 
flux; the mind is unstable, but groping, aggressive, in- 
quiring, versatile. In its turn, everji;hing pleases or 
displeases. Interests multiply, and sometimes coin- 
cide; again they conflict. They begin, in a rude way, 
to order themselves according to their common mean- 
ings. Certain simple biases have taken root in groups 
of these kindred experiences. The child's likings are 
strengthened, held together, and, in a measure, justified 
by a series of kindred experiences, which in time he 
comes to recognize as a series and as kindred. The 
same changes may be affirmed of his dislikes. The 
child begins more definitely also to think in lines, with 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 65 

steps having reasonable sequence. His reflection may 
not be conscious, or be so in a small degree only ; but 
the parts are ordered after a law of some unity. Many 
experiences are reflected in this one. His separate 
thoughts, and purposes, and interests, and his personal 
touch with his fellows, and his acquaintance with 
things, and his insight into their meanings, come to 
stand each as the representative of a class, and to sug- 
gest the class in his thinking, and to suggest and call 
up other co-ordinate experiences of the same class ; they 
are taking on the characteristics of a mass or organized 
body of experience, having an inner unity, and are be- 
ginning to be significant in the aggregate not less than 
in the individual parts. 

This movement is incident to a native tendency 
of the mind toward integration of its interests. Edu- 
cation as a natural process of maturing implies this 
knitting together of thought, feeling, and purpose, and 
of distinct but kindred thoughts, feelings, and pur- 
poses. It need not be argued that this tendency 
furnishes the ground for such systematic effort as 
the schools may make, to co-ordinate or further the 
co-ordination of the mind's functioning. Far-seeing 
instruction multiplies occasions for the easy asso- 
ciation of its experiences ; by suggestion and environ- 
ment puts the mind in the way of establishing 
legitimate relations, and re-enforces the native ten- 
dency toward integration. This is the solidarity of 
mind that is the essence of character. One in whom 
this quality is wanting, or is possessed in a small de- 



66 Science of Education 

gree only, is described fitly as a charaoterless person, 
vapid and sterile, invertebrate. He lacks constancy 
of purpose, consistency of judgment, the courage that 
gives persistence to his enterprises, the fibre that con- 
firms either loyalty or devotion. In the normal mind 
there seems to be a constitutional tendency among the 
experiences held in solution to organize tliem into an 
effective body of experience, having its own unity and 
standing for singleness of mind. The mind as a whole, 
the life as a whole, comes to have a significance of its 
own. Its several functions act as one, each supporting 
and reinforcing every other. The tendency of the nor- 
mal mind is toward such integration. ]^o teaching can 
be bad that is really guided by this principle, and none 
can have much virtue that ignores it. The mind is 
able to do great things for itself if it be given a suffi- 
ciency of opportunities for its exercise. This providing 
of right occasions and the guiding of activities are in 
the interest of a well-defined native tendency toward 
integral functions, as described. 

In its narrow and literal meaning education is, of 
course, an individual process — a process of growth in 
the individual mind. One person may be stimulated, 
inspired, strengthened, discouraged, hindered, or other- 
wise influenced by others; but the changes — physical 
and spiritual — called maturing, are his alone. The 
exercises, as a result or accompaniment of which this 
maturing comes, are his. The effects are personal. 
The increasing capacity is personal. The finer mental 
acumen is a personal possession; so of the chastening 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 67 

moral sense, the sustained effort, the safer judgment, 
the surer hold on experience, the growth in tenderness, 
the increasing respect for the right — all are private in 
their development, while having public or social rela- 
tions. The changed standards of conduct, and one's 
ideals of manhood and culture and efficiency, however 
inspired, are individual acquirements. The possessions 
of the enlarging mind may be shared with others, but 
not the growth. The act of remembering, or recollect- 
ing, or forming conclusions, or fearing, or loving, or 
worshipping, or striving after ideals, or increasing ex- 
perience, is an inner and private accomplishment. No 
one can forego this responsibility, this privilege, how- 
ever much he may wish to do so. These movements are 
the essence of education. They stand for individual 
reactions and represent individual effort. 

The pedagogical implications are not far to seek. 
Teaching becomes a stimulus to the pupil's self -activity. 
'No one can live another's mental life in such way as to 
free him from any obligation of his own being. That 
strength only is his which he achieves. Telling is not 
teaching, though it is one of its incidents. The one 
determining condition of all learning, of all education, 
is the exercise of self-effort. Education is an indi- 
vidual process in both the act and the motive. It is 
individual also in its primary results. The secondary 
consequences may, and often do, compass the group and 
institutional life about one, but the immediate changes 
are personal. 

It has been noticed elsewhere that this process of 



68 Science of Education 

maturing in the individual, which is called education, 
has its counterpart in civilization — the approach to 
adult life in the race. But in other ways, also, educa- 
tion has its group meanings — it is a well-defined proc- 
ess of socializing the individual. In most human acts, 
from the simple patriarchal and tribal relations of 
primitive man to the complex life of to-day, reference 
is had to the fact that each is one of many, and, in his 
living, of necessity takes the many into account. Few 
of his exj>eriences concern himself alone ; from morn- 
ing till night most of them have to do with his relations 
to his fellows — the social conventions, business inter- 
ests in which others are involved, current news and 
public affairs, more or less detailed asjDects of his mem- 
bership in one or another of the great social institutions 
(the church, the state, the school, the family, conven- 
tional society, and the industrial body) and the mani- 
fold personal relations which he sustains toward his 
fellows. As a particular being each has by birth a 
certain individuality, the more important characteris- 
tics of which he holds in common with others ; but he 
becomes a person only through association with them 
and by many mutual adjustments. By virtue of his 
individual nature he claims and covets certain privi- 
leges and rights as his due. He resents interference 
and obstruction to his will. He soon learns that such 
personal interference implies other individuals claim- 
ing like rights and privileges upon exactly the same 
grounds. Each is a check upon every other whom he 
meets, and concessions are made — mutual concessions. 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 69 

In time the sense of responsibility is stimiilated, and 
it is discovered that for every privilege there is a cor- 
responding obligation. Each is no longer an individ- 
ual, but a member of a group. In his daily behavior 
he begins to take others into account. When, in the 
daily round of his life, he does this habitually he has 
become a growing personality. Along with more or 
less of protest and mental reserve, and sometimes re- 
bellion, there goes an increasing degree of co-operation. 
There are frequent concessions and sacrifices, and re- 
sulting conventions that come, in time, to regulate 
behavior, and become the codes of social and business 
and professional intercourse. This socializing process, 
the achieving of personality, is a spiritual movement 
in the individual that is distinctively educational. 

To one looking back upon the process, then, educa- 
tion is seen to mean more than development and the 
acquiring of personal possessions and traits; it means 
also social adjustments, and the acceptance of com- 
munity standards of personal behavior, and the subor- 
dination of private whims and caprices, and a fitting 
for the concerted action of many, whereby each profits. 
The efficiency of the individual is reflected in the effi- 
ciency of the group. Each finds its limitations not less 
than its stimulations in the other. This effort of the 
individual to fit both its doing and its thinking to an 
objective but kindred existence constitutes a large and 
important factor in each one's education. It involves 
a form of concerted action in which there must be 
constant reference to a power not itself, by conformity 



70 Science of Education 

to which or reaction against which it is itself modified. 
What one can or cannot achieve, what one may or may 
not do, will be largely determined by this social environ- 
ment, this aggregate of similar but often interfering 
forces and interests. It has been said that " no one is 
quite so bad when he is alone as with others, and no 
one is quite so good when alone as with others." So 
alertness and mental acumen are often stimulated or 
repressed, according to the force and enthusiasm of 
one's companions. The movement toward maturity, 
which is the primary educational process, is not only, 
upon the whole, forward and upward in the fonn of 
the development of native capacities, but outward in 
breadth to compass these manifold personal and group 
reactions. Converging in the individual are these 
social tendencies that demand cultivation. No system 
or method of schooling is complete that omits a recog- 
nition of them or their training. 

In another and important sense education reveals 
the group bias, in that it tends, when not interfered 
with, to conserve the species; this, in general recogni- 
tion of the principle of the survival of the fittest. The 
training that, for any reason, is inapt or querulous, 
that violates the natural law of development, or ob- 
structs the co-operation of individuals through profit- 
able adjustments, defeats its own purposes. The edu- 
cation that is unserviceable to the race bears the seed of 
its o^vn destruction. The highest good of the indi- 
vidual must conform to the highest good of the race. 
What tends to destroy the one tends to destroy the 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 71 

other. In each one converge various and often antago- 
nistic race tendencies. Looked at through long periods 
and in the aggregate their development is favorable to 
the preservation of the species. In the process many 
individuals go down. But in general education is race 
progress, not less than growth in social stability and 
amelioration, and in individual maturity, and fulness 
of life. It looks to furthering wholesome race condi- 
tions. Education, in this asjject, is coextensive with 
the race in its struggles toward and progress in civili- 
zation. It is broader than history and older than his- 
toric records. It compasses manifold movements that 
have not taken organic form in any of the great social 
institutions, and hence are not historical; and, being 
coextensive with the race, must be many thousands of 
years older than the oldest records of history. In 
anthropology and ethnology and the contributing sci- 
ences, and the studies of antiquities generally, much 
assistance may be had in the study of primitive stages 
of the race development. And it is not difficult to 
discover that certain important and abiding forms of 
these race groupings are represented in the more highly 
developed individuals and the forces of social activity 
of the present day. In the conservation and evolution 
of the species the essential fact would seem to be the 
effort to use its experiences and in reacting upon its 
environment. This again becomes identical with the 
factors that make for education in the individual and 
for adjustments in society. It has this objective refer- 
ence, but is an inner process of growth. 



72 Science of Education 

Again, education is a process of emancipation; a 
freeing of the spirit from tlie dominance of the body. 
In the child, life is predominantly sensuous. The spe- 
cial senses and the general bodily functions control 
experience. The environment is obtrusive and insist- 
ent. Having little experience, the control of his actions 
is chiefly from without, or stimulated from without. 
His activity is unremitting, not because he chooses, but 
because he must. His inheritance is facile and in- 
sinuating. He cannot do but obey. The world is 
strange and, to his untaught judgment, often defiant. 
His adjustments in conduct and achievements are often 
occasioned, or, at least, happy coincidences. It is a 
process in the main, perhaps, of being conformed, 
rather than confonning. But in time, as a result of 
many constrained imitations, and provoked interests, 
and impeded and only partially successful efforts at 
control, the child acquires a simple initiative, both in 
motive and behavior. Creative energy is yet weak, 
but it is incipient. He is learning mastery, and is 
able to choose his reactions. Experience is no less 
sensuous, but is less arbitrary. He finds his o^vn spirit 
reproduced in the world of thing and person about him, 
and identifies and interprets the marks of kinship. In 
many and gratifying ways he finds himself able to use 
his senses, and is no longer imperiously used by them. 
The field of choice is enlarging, and the jx)wer and 
disposition to exercise it. He is earning his emancii3a- 
tion. On this side of the process education is an 
emancipation of the mind from fear of or dependence 



Tentative Characteristics of Education 73 

upon the environment and a growing sense of original 
reaction and voluntary effort. 

In the preceding statement the purpose has been 
consistently kept in mind to avoid definition and crit- 
ical analysis, and to present descriptively and tenta- 
tively the more obvious characteristics only of educa- 
tion as they appear from different points of view : that 
it is, primarily, a fact of the mind ; that it is a process 
rather than a product ; that it is a natural and life-long 
process, not something imposed upon the individual 
from without; that it is a rational process, and is so 
distinguished from training; that it tends toward the 
integration of experiences into a body of experience ; 
tliat it is an individual process, with numerous group 
and race reactions; and that it is a growth toward 
spiritual freedom and an emancipation from the domi- 
nance of the merely sensuous and external. 

Education as an individual maturing includes psy- 
chology in its various forms, and, under the guise of 
schooling, implies teaching; as concerned with group 
life, it comprises social relations, ethics, and refonns; 
as a product, it suggests knowledge, skill, discipline, 
character, and alertness ; from the point of view of its 
instruments, tliere are implied schools, teachers, and 
equipments ; as a process, it appears in all human func- 
tioning — as development, adjustment, maturing, civil- 
ization. Throughout the following text it is considered 
primarily in this last sense; i.e., as a process. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION 

In the preceding chapters a descriptive view only has 
been taken of the educational process. It is believed 
that the more important characteristics have been pre- 
sented. These chapters have meant to show, simply, 
how education appears from different points of view, 
and, by rough and approximate comparisons, how it 
stands related to kindred processes and certain legiti- 
mate results and instruments: to training; to teaching 
and the teacher; to the learner and to learning; to the 
child and the adult ; to scholarship, skill, discipline, cult- 
ure, character; to school and the formal instruments of 
instruction, and to the non-school agencies; in the indi- 
vidual and in the race; in its social or group forms and 
meanings; to physical and sense culture; and to the 
processes of civilization. The discussion follows the 
order of all human experience. First views are general, 
more or less partial, descriptive, sometimes scrappy; 
analytic, becoming more critical with added experience; 
cumulative, each larger view revising former judg- 
ments; and so fixing acquaintance with the material 
that is to be studied, and given an organic setting, by 
subsequent scientific statements. 

The closing paragraphs of the last chapter give a 

74 



The Subject of Education 75 

summary of these descriptive characterizations of the 
educational process. It is believed that no one of the 
features there suminarized may properly be left out of 
the final count. Looking to the formulation of a body 
of educational doctrine, there remains their right order- 
ing in a series of consistent statements, that shall have 
their own organic unity, each fairly exclusive of the 
others, and all taken together, being inclusive of every 
essential characteristic in the general notion. These 
constitute the fundamental categories in the notion of 
education. 

Among teachers generally, whether of the element- 
ary or the higher schools, and by many thoughtful 
laymen, there are held more or less scattering convic- 
tions as to aims and methods and working principles, 
many of which are full of helpful meaning, and some 
of which are vital; but which have not, by most 
teachers, certainly not by the body of teachers, taken 
on any consistent organic form so as to constitute a body 
of doctrine. To say, e.g., that, in its learning, the mind 
passes from some familiar experience to a nearly 
related unfamiliar or unknown, means little, unless its 
relation to certain other principles is understood and 
their meaning has been taken, in terms of the generic 
process called growth. The best teacher's following 
of a detached principle of procedure may degenerate 
into a rule-of-thumb method, and become viciously me- 
chanical. " The concrete before the abstract," " things 
before words," " never tell a child what he can find out 
for himself," " interest is the basis of all learning," 



76 Science of Education 

" the head, the heart and the hand must work together," 
" a few things at a time and those well learned," " the 
simple before the complex," " the near before the dis- 
tant," " description before definition," an emphasis of 
the child's initiative as against following authority, the 
educational value of a sense of personal responsibility, 
and " childhood is the time for acquisition " ; may all, 
if taken out of their right perspective, deteriorate into 
mere devices for more effectually foisting a wrong 
habit or fixing a narrowing bias. What constitutes 
" personal initiative " and a sense of responsibility and 
child resourcefulness; and what experiences are simple 
or concrete; and how the head, the heart and the hand 
are to work together, may, and often do receive, but 
wooden interpretation. And they are all the more 
likely to receive such interpretation, if there be want- 
ing a sound notion of what education is in its nature 
and conditions. 

The present chapter, then, is given to a statement of 
what are here considered the four fundamentals in the 
notion of education as characterized in preceding pages, 
and to a discussion of the first one. 

That is, from these studies, it may fairly be inferred 
that : 

1. Education presupposes a free, rational, intelligent, 
self-conscious, self-determining being as its only sub- 
ject. 

2. Education presupposes an equally rational (ra- 
tionally made) external world of happening as its only 
instrument. 



The Subject of Education 77 

3. Education presupposes an internal free impulse 
toward development through using this intelligent 
world, as its only motive. 

4. Education presupposes time and the accompanying 
opportunities for this development as its only condition. 

These statements have been given as fairly express- 
ing the four fundamentals in the notion of education: 
(1) the subject, (2) the means, (3) the motives, and (4) 
the conditions. They are all presuppositions, and are 
submitted as inclusive of all necessary factors. A con- 
sideration of them separately may make their several 
meanings and implications clearer. 

1. Education presupposes a free, rational, intelli- 
gent, self-conscious, self-determining being as its only 
subject. 

As the term is here used, the subject of education is 
the being in whom the process takes place. It is 
affirmed that the process called and elsewhere described 
as education cannot take place in any other subject; 
that any being is educable to the degree only that it 
possesses these and kindred characteristics; while carry- 
ing somewhat different shades of meaning, the terms 
used all name qualities of mind that are popularly as 
well as critically affirmed of normal man. Though 
surrounded by an aggressive world of forces and hap- 
penings, man, within the limits of his conditions, is 
free in thought and purpose and personal choice. How- 
ever he may share the quality, he also possesses intelli- 
gence, the power to know, and to reflect upon and inter- 
pret what he knows, making his own thinking the con- 



78 Science of Education 

scious object of his attention. He possesses, further, the 
power of initiative in mind, using the happenings of the 
world and of other minds as the raw material of his 
experience, and for the accomplishment of his self- 
initiated purpose. To the degree that his doing depends 
upon reason rather than upon instinct; that he has fore- 
sight and the power and habit of selecting and adjust- 
ing suitable means for the accomplishment of his pur- 
pose; that he is, through a regulative imagination, able 
to conceive and construct for himself ideals of achieve- 
ment and conduct and beauty and truth; and that he is 
able to clothe his foresight and reasoning and ideals in 
an intelligible symbolism of language, man is called a 
rational being. 

Without essaying a critical consideration of these 
qualities, and not attempting an inventory of other im- 
portant spiritual characteristics, or distinguishing be- 
tween brute and human intelligence, let it be sufficient 
to say that any creature that reveals these traits may 
be educated, as education has been here characterized. 
Man may be educated because he has these qualities. 
But in a statement of the first fundamental it is asserted 
that only such creature may be educated. It need not 
be argued that the author is not ignorant of the claims 
made for animal intelligence, animal reasoning, the 
emotions and sentiments and sense of right and beauty 
in the animal world. All that may safely and fairly be 
admitted, affirmed, indeed; and the statement still holds 
in all essentials. There is, however, a twofold difficulty 
met in the attempt to interpret animal actions: (1) in 



The Subject of Education 79 

explaining their actions in terms of human experience; 
and (2) in denying to them anything in common with 
men. While the former mistake is likely to be made 
by one who works much with animals and has frequent 
occasion to note their marks of intelligence, the latter 
is even more likely to follow an exclusive acquaintance 
with children. Rarey, the famous horse trainer of a 
generation ago, was accustomed to say that he got his 
insight into horse nature through studying human 
nature. Equally, perhaps, with much reason at least, 
it may be said, the teacher's understanding of child 
nature and character will be clarified when he is made 
familiar with what the manager of the " Animal Para- 
dox " is able to tell him. This may be made clearer, 
perhaps, by putting it differently. A similar difficulty 
appears in the attempt to interpret human actions. This 
also is twofold, shown in the disposition, (1) to explain 
human actions (many of them) in terms of automatism 
and instinct, and (2) to deny to the higher forms of life 
the instincts of the animal. 

Some points of likeness and difference between men 
and the lower animals may fairly be taken as by com- 
mon consent: most animals reason, and, within the 
limits of their experience, often, as well as do men. All 
brute reasoning, however, even the most highly devel- 
oped, seems to be: (1) concrete, (2) individual, and (3) 
associative, resting chiefly upon contiguity. Certain 
animals, also, may be taught to use symbols, in a way. 
But this, obviously, is similar to the first child knowl- 
edge and use of symbols — every name is a proper name; 



80 Science of Education 

i.e., it bears an individual, not general significance. 
With the dog under training, a new movement requires 
a new symbol; in the human individual, the new move- 
ment allies itself with, not another individual move- 
ment, which it duplicates, but with one or another of 
several classes of movements, already more or less fa- 
miliar, in the light of which the new one is interpreted. 
Both the lower and the higher forms may be trained; 
the latter only are here characterized as subjects of 
education. In the two products there are decided and 
far-reaching differences. The process, in dog or pony, 
results in giving him facility through routine — a par- 
ticular skill limited to what has been taught; in the 
case of a child there is added to this, generic power, 
making possible from the one lesson the acquirement 
of a more or less different skill in untaught lines. A 
dog, e.g., having been so taught, may unknot a thou- 
sand ropes, without coming nearer to the point of turn- 
ing a new one, or the same straight rope, into a different 
twist. A dog, also, familiar with turning somersaults, 
and understanding the meaning of " back " or "back- 
ward " must yet be taught, as a new trick, how to turn 
a " backward somersault." Now, it is just this power 
to do things which have never been taught, or even sug- 
gested by the teacher, but which has come from his per- 
sonal reaction upon what has been taught, that dis- 
tinguishes the education of the child from the kindred 
process in the dog, or the flea or the elephant. The 
former is called properly " education," the latter train- 
ing. Training results in specific skill; education, in 



The Subject of Education 81 

resourceful power. Training, wlietlier in animal or 
child, looks to facility in doing, rather than initiative in 
thinking. It suggests dexterity, but in fixed and narrow 
fields. If it reaches expertness, there is implied a cul- 
tivated ability that connects itself with education. 
Knack, skill, mechanical readiness, aptness, handiness, 
adroitness, belong to the one; resourcefulness, versa- 
tility, adjustment of means, adaptability, abundant con- 
trivance, to the other. Training goes with repetition of 
movement or mental action; education, with venture, 
experiment and judgment. Training results in tradi- 
tion and habit; education, in manifoldness of interest 
and invention. The one is stable and safe and uniform; 
the other, progressive. In training, the lesson taught 
is returned in kind — a more or less exact copy of the 
original. It is imitative, and often unthinking. It 
looks to perfect reproduction, careless of implied les- 
sons. Training fits the subject to give back what it has 
received. Education, on the other hand, stimulates the 
imagination, and offers a field for the exercise of the 
creative faculties. Retentiveness and faithfulness of 
imitation underlie the former; the latter, with equal 
respect for an unfailing memory, is endowed with a 
creative reaction which combines into new forms the 
simple experiences on the basis of their inner meanings. 
Among the nations, an emphasis of the former gives 
stability and an appointed cast to their institutions; a 
cultivation of the latter encourages change, and, in gen- 
eral, progress. Any being, whose functions compass 
both sets of capacities, may be educated. 



82 Science of Education 

Once more, education emphasizes, in its process, the 
universal element in man — personality; training, the 
individual. This regards information; so much acqui- 
sition held as mere possession; more or less foreign to 
the mind, but usable; that, wisdom, knowledge assimi- 
lated, transformed or transformable into generic 
energy. The often disconsolate Cowper had an insight 
into some such distinction when he wrote: 

" Knowledge and wisdom far from being one 
Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other men; 
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own." 

By long training and an exigent process of teach- 
ing, one may have converged upon him, as in a stream, 
theoretically, all the learning of the ages, but neither 
enriching this store of knowledge by resolving it into, 
for him, new meanings, nor being himself improved 
by its possession ; being a reservoir of information, but 
neither an interpreter of it nor a creator of new forms. 
By education the mind becomes an organ for working 
over its accumulations, as the raw material of its experi- 
ences, and the occasion of its own maturing. One puts 
a coin into his purse. In the purse it remains a coin; 
and, taken out betimes, it is the same coin, changed 
neither an interpreter of it nor a creator of new forms, 
nothing. It is the original one talent returned to the 
master at his coming, without increment or waste. This 
admirably symbolizes mere training. Knowledge so 
learned, or skill so acquired, is stored against examina- 



The Subject of Education 83 

tlon day, or the call of the taskmaster. The mind is 
neither enriched by it nor the skill or knowledge im- 
proved. Hid in the napkin of an unthinking mind, it 
loses its rightful usury. If, on the contrary, the coin 
destined for the purse were such a coin that, once in the 
purse, it bred other coins, of manifold values and make, 
and, by virtue of its presence in the purse and with 
other coins, shared with them all, in increasing the 
actual and usable value of the contents, how anxious 
every lover of riches would covet its possession! But 
this is a partial symbol only of what real knowledge 
does in the mind. Properly used it breeds and multi- 
plies. It was a favorite dictum of Froebel that " the 
primary function of the teacher is to sow mother 
thoughts "; thoughts that easily lend themselves to gen- 
eration and reproduction. Every genuine experience 
becomes recreative. This is the nature of education. 
It eschews mere storage and pigeon-holing. Experi- 
ences are given free commerce. Each reacts upon every 
other. The value of each is multiplied into all. But 
once more, in the illustration, if the coins be conceived 
as not only multiplying themselves and increasing their 
own values, by virtue of there being carried on this free 
commerce among them; but as so reacting upon the 
purse, that the purse itself becomes more of a purse, 
with larger capacity, of better quality, and of such 
changed nature that it comes to have the power to re- 
inforce this multiplication of values, and to make coins 
of its own designing, and bearing its own stamp; the 
meaning of the illustration will be more apparent. This, 



84 Science of Education 

distinctively, is of the nature of education. The mind 
itself is made over by the knowledge it has and uses to 
its own ends. It creates its own ideals, and formulates 
its own purposes, and shapes its own experiences; it con- 
structs and solves its own problems; and utters its own 
interpretations. This is education — this coming to 
wisdom, that shall primarily be " attentive to its own," 
not alone others' thoughts. This it is to grow in per- 
sonality, to be more than individual; to stand for the 
universal in culture and possession; to bring the one 
mind to be a sharer in the divine quality of all mind — 
creativeness. Mere training stifles this instinct, and 
tends to limit mind by emphasizing chiefly imitation 
and the nursing of a store of individual ideas. 

Humanism, originally committed to spiritual disci- 
pline, came in time to depreciate discipline into a train- 
ing. Technological training, on the contrary, intro- 
duced as an utility, has, in its best estate, and not unfre- 
quently, exalted practice into a discipline. It is a com- 
monplace among thoughtful men that any experience or 
learning or skill that has legitimate uses in thinking or 
doing, may be accompanied by this incident of thought 
creation and great achievement. For the effecting 
of highest returns of good to the soul, the mind is pe- 
culiarly indifferent to the material or instrument it uses, 
provided only that this material have constructive adap- 
tation. Language in general, or a particular language, 
or the classics of the traditional school; philosophy and 
the philosophical courses; mathematics as a pure sci- 
ence, or the mathematical sciences; history, literature, 



The Subject of Education 85 

art and ethics; the experimental and laboratory sci- 
ences; industry, trade and technology — mind has them 
all for its own. Breadth of interest, manly self-reliance, 
public enterprise and a sense of personal responsibility; 
resourcefulness in emergency or in difficulty, a chas- 
tened mind and the scholarly habit, may accompany the 
serious pursuit of any of them. Virtue lies, not in the 
branch studied, but in the way; the motive with which 
it is pursued, and the uses made of its lessons. Whether 
the field be the humanities or technology, education 
discovers the man in the thinking and doing; training, 
the artisan or the machine. The former looks to stimu- 
lating and reinforcing personal initiative; the latter to 
the following of alien authority and suggestion. " The 
end of education," it has been said, " is to actualize in 
each individual his potential freedom, his implicit self- 
determinateness." As in manufacture, so here, some 
tools, will be found, in particular cases, to be more 
effective than others. But, speaking broadly, the tool 
is unimportant. It is an incident, and, in general, its 
significance passes with its using. Its virtue consists 
not in the holding of it, but in its being translated into 
effect for the heart, or the mind, or the body; for pleas- 
ure or profit for self or others. 

Finally, that a creature possessing the attributes 
named in the preceding paragraphs is the only subject 
of education, is not more true than that these attri- 
butes, not those which man shares with the lower ani- 
mals, are the ones to which appeal is made, and which 
respond in education. The child yields readily to train- 



86 Science of Education 

ing also, not less than to education. In any system of 
directed education, certain of the exercises must be of 
the character of training. Much of what the child must 
know, in order to get along with his fellows, he learns 
outside of school, but for some of it he must depend 
upon the more formal lessons. There are many things 
he must know. In part, these are acquired through 
much drill and iteration; in part, through use and his 
own personal attempts. These so-called training exer- 
cises include chiefly: (1) all symbols as such; (2) conven- 
tional codes of the purely social nature; (3) business 
forms; (4) civic requirements, and (5) church cere- 
monies. Indeed, all of them might, without doing vio- 
lence to the thought, be included under the first class. 
Conventional codes and business forms, and civic orders 
and ecclesiastical ceremonies are all so many symbols. 
Tinder the first head, however, may be considered 
letters, sounds, words, spelling, syllables, pronuncia- 
tion; writing; sentence order, rules and conditions of 
compositions; the naming of objects with their attri- 
butes, and persons and places with their individual char- 
acteristics; art and industrial forms, geometric forms; 
figures and current modes of calculation; all of which 
are more or less arbitrary, but having an established 
order that must be mastered by him who would use 
them. The mastering of them is more or less a matter 
of training. Added to these are the formal conven- 
tional codes; of salutation, characteristic of the cultured 
people of one's time and region; of courtesy, both 
among friends or kin, and strangers — acceptable forms, 



The Subject of Education 87 

but springing from an ingrained babit; of obedience, 
whether to established customs, to invested authority, 
to persons in office, or to a public opinion, and looking 
to the common welfare; of social respect, to the aged, 
to one's superiors, to W9men, to the needy or the suf- 
fering, to one's inferiors in the industrial or social order, 
etc. All of which codes, again, are arbitrary, but bind- 
ing upon all who would add to their personal efficiency 
this strength that conies from membership in an or- 
ganized social group, of whose intelligent intercourse 
the codes are symbols. Their acquisition by the indi- 
vidual is through a process of training rather than edu- 
cation. Among the most important of the social forms, 
and, because they rest upon a complex and suggestive 
social life, more educative, perhaps, are the so-called 
business forms. In general, too, they seem to be quite 
as arbitrary, though often resting upon reasonable 
grounds. And, because reasonable, and not altogether 
arbitrary, they may be made the occasion of profitable 
educational activity. The distinctively business forms 
may be included chiefly under the following heads: the 
market, including business calculations, established 
measures and units, simple legal forms, orders, receipts, 
checks, notes, letters, money and exchange values, 
banks, banking, supply and demand, the store, bills, 
debts, loans, interest, etc.; transportation, including 
knowledge of highways with their rights and privileges, 
steam and other roads and their rights, codes of travel, 
railway and commercial geography, shipping markets, 
trunk lines, terminals, and connecting industrial and 



88 Science of Education 

political centres, and tlie laws of such intercourse; and, 
finally, the office, including notions of official authority, 
professional forms and formulae, office customs, medi- 
cal and legal nomenclature and technical matters as 
they become part of the common lay experience. 

Another field of abundant training exercises of far- 
reaching consequences is that which comprises the rela- 
tions of the civic and municipal life: the duties and 
privileges of citizenship, one's relations to his fellows, 
as members of a common political body, the forms of 
procedure in civil and public affairs, how to act as a 
neighbor, as a habitant of a city, as a citizen of the 
commonwealth, at the post-office, touching revenues 
and customs, the census and assessments, elections, etc. 
While, in a general way, these may be made a means 
of more or less education, they are primarily, and for 
the great majority of individuals, objects of training. 
Concerning these matters, each must be given a habit of 
right civic behavior. This is training: of the better 
sort, certainly; but training, rather than education. So, 
of all church ceremonies a similar statement may be 
made. They are acquired with a minimum of educa- 
tional result, but wholesome as training. They must be 
learned, as all symbols are learned, through much repe- 
tition. 

For the purposes of the school these several symbols 
and codes may be considered in two groups: (1) those 
that are needed and employed in further learning; and 
(2) those involved in social intercourse. The former 
include language as reading, something of a nomencla- 



The Subject of Education 89 

ture of science, and the signs and symbols in mathe- 
matics; the latter, the codes that obtain among one's 
people touching the social, business, ethical and civic 
relations. To the degree that schooling is an effort to 
equip the individual for intelligent participation in the 
world's social order; for effective living in growing in- 
stitutions under established codes; the programme of the 
school must look to training each indivdual in the 
habits that make for social integrity and an organized 
community life. The tools of this common efficiency 
must be mastered by each. They constitute the alpha- 
bet of learning and of group intercourse. This is 
largely a matter of training. The rudiments of this 
acquisition are more or less fixed, and are not subject 
to personal judgment and preference. The use of social 
and business codes may not safely be made a matter of 
one's whim, or their general practice be ignored. Both 
in school and in life, how best to grow finds its worthy 
complement in how best to behave. And, in the 
achievement of the latter, the requirements of the 
school, as of life, are exacting. 

Through all the earlier years of the growing child, 
therefore, an emphasis is very properly placed upon ex- 
ercises that are designed to put the child into possession 
of the necessary tools of learning, and the primary con- 
ventions that lie at the foundation of a safe and helpful 
congregate life. Whatever else is done or omitted, 
these must not be disregarded. They belong to the 
class of experiences which all have need to share. It 
is easy to discover, therefore, the reason for the primi- 



90 Science of Education 

tive emphasis which schools and popular thought placed 
upon the three R's as being, in the simple life of an 
earlier day, the obvious essentials in one's training, for 
adult, social and business responsibilities. That they 
are no longer exclusively essential should not detract 
from a recognition of their far-reaching meaning in all 
formal education, even to-day. These, particularly the 
language arts, are fundamental. The effective, facile 
use of one's vernacular, adequate to the expression of 
one's experience, should be coveted by the school for 
every child; such mastery of it as makes an acquaintance 
with the records of the race's thought and achievement 
an inviting task. Language, in this sense, must come 
early to be used as a tool, not an unfamiliar product to 
be thought upon or investigated. The book habit must 
be acquired: not an exclusive temper, but an easy in- 
strument. 

But, even here, among the acquirements of symbol 
and conventionality, the process may be made to a 
greater or less degree educative, and not mere training. 
Any exercise that stimulates the child's initiative and 
occasions a growth of his sense of responsibility, in ever 
so small a measure, the power and disposition to do 
work of his own purposing, the application of personal 
effort, is so far educative, and is, by the same tokens, 
distinguished from training. It is believed that upon 
most forms of technical and conventional training, so 
called, this educational bias may be conferred. What- 
ever the tendency of the life outside the school, the un- 
wavering purpose of the school should be to reduce the 



The Subject of Education 91 

exclusively and narrowly training exercises to a mini- 
mum; and to make each an instrument of self-helpful- 
ness and personal initiative. That this may be done, 
touching many kinds of technical, and formal learning, 
appears from actual achievement. Children best learn 
to read by much (directed) reading. Various grades of 
hand work, with and without tools, while developing 
skill, also cultivate resourcefulness and thoughtful in- 
genuity. The nomenclature and organization of science 
are mastered through scientific experiment and investi- 
gation. In the higher technical courses, an invariable 
accompaniment and product of all doing is the added 
power and disposition to do. That the simple, formal 
and symbol-freighted lessons of elementary classes 
should be so treated as to leave the pupil increasingly 
self-helpful, follows as an obvious corollary of these 
statements. 

It would seem reasonable^ therefore, that every 
lesson of the school, as far as may be, should be made 
a means of self-directive effort in the pupil; that 
the emphasis be put, not upon how much he learns, but 
upon self -guidance and personal reactions; that the true 
function of the teacher is to be stimulating and sug- 
gestive, not controlling; that the child be encouraged 
in voluntary effort; initiating and carrying on experi- 
ences of his own choosing, in series of his own planning, 
looking to the accomplishing of results of his own pur- 
posing, and in his own w^ay; in the earliest years even, 
to read something, ever so simple, for his own pleasure; 
to spell words of his own selection, thus fixing a habit 



92 Science of Education 

of noting the letter composition of words; to use his 
knowledge of number in measurement and calculation 
to meet the needs of his own passing experiences; to 
engage his interest in observing and using and enjoying 
the happenings of nature about him; as often as may 
be, free from the detailed prescriptions of the school, 
that his own alert, spontaneous acquaintance with the 
outer world may furnish abundant material for the 
teacher's more systematic lessons; that he be encouraged 
in the somewhat free and simple, childish regard for 
people and their doings, their employments and amuse- 
ments, their homes and tools and exploits — to the end 
that his sympathy with human life and social move- 
ments be conserved. 

All this is simply by way of appeal to the rational, 
human quality in the child, as distinct from the imita- 
tive following of prescriptive exercises. If he is to 
be made self-helpful, his self-helpfulness must be ex- 
ercised; even in the first years he must be stimulated 
to attempt some things unaided, without even the hint 
of the teacher ; and many more upon suggestion, but 
free from any limiting control. This is in accordance 
with the law of self-activity, which is one of the pri- 
mary instincts of the child. To preserve this free im- 
pulse to know and enjoy, and to save it fresh for youth 
and adult years, is the high achievement of great teach- 
ing. " For either the book or the teacher to do the whole 
work is to rob the child of power." The benefit of most 
subjects of study is not in the having, but in the getting. 
Lessons should aim at cultivating power to get knowl- 



The Subject of Education 93 

edge, to originate experience, to follow the implications 
of experience, to interpret conditions, and to recognize 
and use means. And this applies not to youth and 
adults only in their culturing, but to comparatively 
young children. Education, then, as here employed, as 
distinct from formal training, signifies an appeal to 
the rational, idealizing, creative powers of the child, 
and a gradual working away from dictation, pattern- 
following and counterfeit doing. 

Education presupposes a free, rational, intelligent, 
self-conscious, self -determining being as its only subject. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE INSTRUMENT OF EDUCATION 

2. Education presupposes an equally rational (ra- 
tionally made) world of happening and doing as its 
only instrument. 

The word rational has two legitimate meanings: the 
one use signifying, " having the faculty of reasoning," 
or " endowed with reason or understanding " ; the other, 
" being agreeable to reason, reasonable, constituted or 
governed by reason." Mr. Huxley says : " Law means 
a rule which we have always found to hold good, and 
which we expect always will hold good." In this latter 
use, there is in the world, apparently, intention or pur- 
pose or design. The objects and their phenomena are 
recognized as significant, as having meaning, and being 
interpretable, capable of explanation. We think of the 
Divine mind as rational, and speak of the human mind 
as rational, i.e., constructive, creative, intelligent; but 
in either case, that which it creates, or produces, or does, 
is also rational, in that it has meaning in it. In its 
parts and their relations, there is discoverable an order 
as if following a plan or purpose; and not existing or 
changing by chance or haphazard. As Prof. James 
phrases it: "the whole world is rationally intelligible 

94 



The Instrument of Education 95 

throughout, after the pattern of some ideal system." 
Elsewhere in even more striking words he affirms that 
it " contains consciousness as well as atoms," Again, 
he describes it as " a world in which general laws obtain, 
in which universal propositions are true, and in which, 
therefore, reasoning is possible." Because " nature is 
simple and invariable," and because the w'orld is in- 
telligible, its phenomena appeal to human intelligence. 
If objects in daily use had not constant properties; if 
happenings were not traceable to uniform antecedents; 
if a name were sometimes applicable, and sometimes 
not, to a given object; if forms of otherwise familiar 
things were transient and irregular; if the world of 
thing and change were orderless and inconstant; it 
would, as a consequence, be unusable, because unthink- 
able. Says Dr. DeWitt Hyde in his Social Theology: 
"... the world of human science, and art, and his- 
tory and politics is throughout an ordered world. All 
things are firmly bound together by indissoluble laws: 
so that a change at one point involves a compensating 
change in everything even remotely connected with 
it. . . . The world of our thought is one. All 
things in it stand to each other in reciprocal relations. 
Each thing must take its definite place by the side of 
other things in space; each event must take its precise 
position before and after events in time; each quality 
must be bound up with, and dependent upon, other qual- 
ities, under the conception of substance which we put 
upon groups of qualities to hold them together in our 
minds; each change must be the correlate of other 



96 Science of Education 

clianges according to the law of cause and effect, 
whereby we maintain for our thought the identity of 
the world in the midst of its increasing transforma- 
tion. . . . The world is the great mirror in which 
our reason sees itself reflected." And the late Her- 
bert Spencer says : " The power manifested throughout 
the universe distinguished as material, is the same 
power which, in ourselves, wells up under the form of 
consciousness." But as the previous author quoted 
says:* " The fixed relations in which all objects of our 
thought stand to each other are not of our own making. 
This coherence . . . is no device of the subjective 
mind of the beholder. The unity of all the forces and 
facts of the world in an organic whole of reason we 
discover, but do not create." The wheelbarrow has 
thought in its constitution, as must appear, because of 
which, it is a wheelbarrow, and not an aggregation of 
wood and metal. The like statement may be made of 
the farm, the tree, the human form, a work of fine art, 
a building, an act of heroism. Each is what it is by 
virtue of the " immanent purposefulness " of it. 

There is meaning in all nature, human and material. 
The world is intelligent in the sense that a thread of in- 
telligence or meaningfulness runs through both its more 
permanent states and changes. " In the universe," it 
has been said, there is "no chance and no anarchy." 
Emerson speaks of " stubborn matter that will not 
swerve from its chemical routine " ; and " a planted 
globe, pierced and belted with natural laws." Phenom- 
* W. DeWitt Hyde. " Social Theology," p. 16. 



The Instrument of Education 97 

ena show exacting kinships, and the mind readily dis- 
covers lines of cleavage and grouping and the threads of 
meaning running through the whole. " Genius detects 
through the flv, the caterpillar, the grub, the egg, the 
constant individual; through countless individuals, the 
fixed species ; through many species, the genus ; through 
all genera, the steadfast type; through all kingdoms of 
organized life, the eternal unity." AVe believe the very 
existence, the organization of the universe, to depend 
upon the unchangeable verity of these laws; a connect- 
ing thread of interdependence and re-enforcement, 
through it all, from the primal elements and forces of 
matter, up to and through the highest forms of animal 
life. " In this confidence in the intelligibility of nature," 
said Lange, " lies the foundation of all science." 
Though she sometimes feigns to contravene her own 
laws, nature, we conclude, is always consistent; each 
part responds to every other. Cloud and clod and sun; 
brute and man; heat and moisture; matter and spirit; 
flower and feeling; share in common relations. "A 
change at one point involves a compensating change in 
everything even remotely connected with it." This life 
and its conditions react upon that. In all internal re- 
lations, the manifold is a unity. One of the most con- 
servative of scientists* has said: "There is nothing as 
yet observed in the order of events to make us doubt 
that the universe is bound together, in space and time, 
as a single entity." 

Not only is it true that if phenomena were not gov- 
* Galton. " Inquiry into Human Faculty." 



98 Science of Education 

erned by invariable laws, the existence of science would 
be impossible; but there could, for the same reason, 
be no body of individual or group experience, and no 
use, by man, of the world of either thing or thought. 
Quoting Prof. James * again, " this world might be a 
world in which all things differed, and in which what 
properties there were were ultimate and had no farther 
predicates. In such a world there would be as many 
kinds as there were separate things. We could never 
subsume a new thing under an old kind; or if we could, 
no consequences would follow. Or, again, this might 
be a world in which innumerable things were of a kind, 
but in which no concrete thing remained of the same 
kind long, but all objects were in a flux. Here, again, 
though we could subsume and infer, our logic would be 
of no practical use to us, for the subjects of our propo- 
sitions would have changed whilst we were talking. 
In such worlds, logical relations would obtain, and be 
known, doubtless, as they are now, but they would 
form a merely theoretic scheme and be of no use for 
the conduct of life. But our world is no such world. 
It is a very peculiar world, and plays right into logic's 
hands. Some of the things, at least, which it contains, 
are of the same kind as the other things ; some of them 
remain always of the kind of which they once were; 
and some of the properties of them cohere indissolubly 
and are always found together. Which things these 
latter things are we learn by experience in the strict 
sense of the word, and the results of the experience are 
embodied in ' empirical propositions.' Whenever such 
*Prof. James. "Psychology," vol. ii, p. 651. 



The Instrument of Education 99 

a thing is met witli by us now, our sagacity notes it to 
be of a certain kind; our learning immediately recalls 
that kind's kind, and then that kind's kind, and so on; 
so that a moment's thinking may make us aware that 
the thing is of a kind so remote that we could never 
have directly perceived the connection." 

We no more depend upon the regulated rising and 
setting of the sun, the accustomed recurrence of the 
seasons, and our personal identity, than we count on the 
reappearance, in future experience, of the qualities we 
have found in matter — that water will wet, and fire 
burn; that the cut artery will bleed, acorns produce 
oaks, and the soil germinate seeds; that " there " is 
farther than " here," and that " age " follows " youth " ; 
that pestilence accompanies filth, not cleanliness; and 
that a wrong done to another reacts on the doer. Things 
are not thro^vn hodge-podge together. And the fact 
that they are found to have a reasonable order and an 
articulated sequence, is the fact that makes them ser- 
viceable, not less than intelligible to man — perhaps ser- 
viceable because also intelligible. Indeed, it is every- 
where apparent that the world of phenomena to be 
known and the mind to know are each adapted to the 
other. They fit into each other perfectly. Between 
nature and human needs, and between the existence 
and happenings of nature and the laws of thought, there 
exists a discoverable and usable parallelism. As the 
poet,* also, says of 

" . . . the power 
called nature — animate, inanimate, 

•Browning. "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau." 



L.ofC 



100 Science of Education 

In parts, or in the whole; there's spmething there 
Man-like, that somehow meets the man in me." 

In constitution, if not in purpose, it stands sponsor 
to man's education, this world of matter and force: 

"The stuff that's made, to furnish man with thought and 
feeling. ' ' 

In this meaning of things — both material things and 
the things of the spirit, man and the products of his 
doing — art, rationality appears. Man also becomes 
part of man's environment, part of this rationally con- 
stituted world. Sympathy, service, hate, imitation, 
mother care, personal respect, love of country, faith, 
credulity, art, worship, business, amusement, habit, 
passion even, are meaningful and challenge understand- 
ing. What the race has thought, and done, and aspired 
to; and feared, and loved, and honored; its inventions, 
and comforts, and luxuries, and leisures; its abiding 
concerns and responsibilities; its faiths and ideals; be- 
long also to this articulate universe, manifold with 
mutual reactions, and big with thought responding to 
thought. Here is excuse for history, and art, and re- 
ligion, and poetry; philosophy, government, economics, 
politics, industry, war, language — the round of the 
humanities and the arts. Here is common ground for 
intercourse and appreciation; for humane and competi- 
tive service; for companionship; for social co-operation 
and an institutional life. Man also sets limits to man, 
and regulates his freedom. The human world, also, is 



The Instrument of Education 101 

a rational world, and conforms to the law of thinking. 
" Most objects of daily use — paper, ink, butter, horse 
car — have properties of such constant, unwavering im- 
portance, and have such stereotyped names, that we end 
by believing that to conceive them in those ways is to 
conceive them in the only true way." His own experi- 
ence interprets to man the experience of others. Find- 
ing his mind reflected in others, his own becomes the 
measure of all mind. The power of spiritual realities, 
also, he feels and respects; the meaning of the spiritual 
elements that constitute authority, approval and disap- 
proval, rewards and punishments. 

" Conceptions of intuitive truth," even, says the Duke 
of Argyll,* " have come to man because he is a being in 
harmony with surrounding nature. The human mind 
has opened to them as the bud opens to sun and air. 
Experience is a building up or putting together of con- 
ceptions which the access of external nature finds ready 
to be awakened in the mind. The mind has no ' mould,' 
no forms which it did not receive as a part and conse- 
quence of its unity with the rest of nature. Its concep- 
tions are not manufactured; they are developed. They 
are not made; they grow. The order of thought under 
which the human mind renders intelligible to itself all 
the phenomena of the universe, is not an order which 
it invents, but an order which it simply feels and sees." 

It must be obvious that in the world, then, that 
which makes the world to be knowable is its rationality. 
That is, in all essential relations, they are so much alike 
* Duke of Argyll. "Unity of Nature," pp. 86, 89. 



102 Science of Education 

that man can know nature bj what is in himself; but 
he could not know nature except in terms of nature, 
because it is of like nature with himself; and it grows 
more orderly and rational as the mind perceives its 
simple constitution and orderly arrangement. " The 
world," writes Mr, Hyde,* " is a great mirror in which 
our reason sees itself reflected." It is this quality of 
kinship with reason, this adaptation to uses, this being 
saturated with the element of consciousness, by which 
the universes of both phenomena and action make their 
appeal to the mind, become interesting and knowable. 
In mountain and bird and plant; in shadow and storm; 
in the recurring seasons; in the familiar round of daily 
life — companionships, industries, pleasures, and disap- 
pointments; in the phenomena of things and the doings 
of men; mind finds conformity to its own nature, and 
the laws of its own behavior. Looking at this material 
world with the eyes of the poet, Emerson saw that it 
ministers to the wants of the senses ; answers to the love 
of beauty; teaches the intellect, reforming itself in 
mind; becomes an instrument of language; and is em-' 
blematical of the spiritual facts on which it rests. Of 
man, he says : " His faculties refer to natures out of 
him, and predict the world he is to inhabit; as the fins 
of the fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an 
eagle in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live without 
a world." It is the complement of his mind, the sine 
qua non of his thinking, playfellow for his leisure, part- 
ner in all labor. So much insight as he is able to 
*W. DeWitt Hyde. " Outlines of Social Theology," p. 11. 



The Instrument of Education 103 

master, lie finds parcelled out for liim in the field, and 
the shop, at his desk, and in the crowd. " An object to 
be known is as essential as the mind to know." Time, 
place, cause and effect, means and ends, whole and part, 
outer and inner, real and ideal, motive and result : these 
name relations that are the essence of meaning and 
human use. " Modern science," whites Ferguson, " in 
its sane moods, proceeds upon an immense assumption 
of faith, to wit: that nature is unitary" that it is one 
vast whole and organic body; that is humanly reason- 
able, clear through, and viable to the intellect. . . . 
The soul sets out to impose itself upon the universe, 
with confidence that, in spite of appearances, it is pos- 
sible to do so, that the constitution of the universe is 
not alien to the soul." Here is the excuse for and the 
explanation of the mind's articulated experience; co- 
herent processes; the grouping of experiences; recog- 
nizing and using facts in relation, in classes; the tracing 
of logical sequences to their conclusions; the rounding 
out of thinking and feeling in doing; the perception of 
aesthetic possibilities as grounded in natural appear- 
ances; an easy discrimination of the type form of both 
use and beauty as original in nature also; a serviceable 
estimate of relative values put upon things and 
thoughts, as important and unimportant. " The mate- 
rials and order of thought," says Johonnot, " are fur- 
nished by the outer world. In our daily experience we 
observe the sequences of nature. Night follows day; 
the sun unfailingly appears to pursue his course through 
the heavens; vernal flowers succeed ^vinter snows; all 



104 Science of Education 

vegetable life has an orderly course from germ to ma- 
turity, from maturity to decay; animals have their 
birth, their growth, and their decrepitude; and every- 
where is orderly sequence. This observation leads the 
mind to ascribe order to every kind of phenomena, and 
develops in it the logical faculty." In the words of sage, 
essayist, scientist, poet, philosopher, repeatedly appears 
this faith in a satisfying world, whose movements and 
achievements are adequate to man's awakening, and a 
guide to his experience. The poet. Browning,* in 
strikingly suggestive, almost pedagogical j^hrase, says: 

" I who trace 
The purpose written on the face of things 
For my behoof and guidance; 
. . . Count life just a stuff 
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man." 

This emphasis of nature as distinctly useful in a 
high and w^orthy sense as stimulating man's best en- 
deavor follows close upon his recognition of it as being 
purposeful, as having significance among parts, and 
between part and whole; as a spirit-endowed aggregate 
of responsible parts. In " The Ship that Found Her- 
self," Mr. Kipling, in the words of the skipper, de- 
scribes the vessel as " a highly complex structure o' 
various and conflictin' strains, m' tissues that must 
give an' tak' accordin' to her personal modulus of elas- 
teecity." But adds that, " in the nature o' things, she's 
just irons and rivets and plates put in the form of a 
ship," until, the parts having learned to work together, 
* Browning. Poems : " In a Balcony." 



The Instrument of Education 105 

she has " found herself." The stringers must learn to 
keep the ribs together ; the cylinder needs a regular 
supply of steam ; the garboard-streak must bear the 
pushings of the sea and the weight of tlie cargo; the 
sea-valve must be tight against the driving waves; the 
bulwark plates must swing promptly and surely; the 
rivets must know both how to hold and give, sharing 
the strains among them ; the thiiist-block must take 
the push of the screw, etc. The cylinders had learned 
the lesson of give and take ; " the beams and frames 
and floors and stringers and things had learned how 
to lock down and lock up one another " ; and as " the 
ship found herself," all the talking of the separate 
pieces ceased, melting into one voice, which is the soul 
of the ship. This is an admirable example of co" 
operating parts of a working whole. In the sense here 
used, nature has " found herself." Thing and element 
and force and thought mutually react and re-enforce 
each other. It is a whole whose meaning is present in 
all of its parts, and each of whose parts reflects the 
purpose of the whole. Borrowing the idiom of the 
skipper: "It's a highly complex structure o' various 
conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' 
according to its personal modulus o' elasteecity." This 
all seems very human and familiar. The personal ele- 
ment seems to be magnified. But the more the cosmos 
is studied, whether as macrocosm or microcosm, the 
more " we come to understand that the unity which we 
see in nature is that kind of unity which the mind 
recognizes as the result of operations similar to its own ; 



106 Science of Education 

SL unity which consists in the subordination of material, 
composition, and structure, to similar aims and similar 
principles of action — not something outside of us, some- 
thing on which we can look down, or to which we can 
look up; a unity of organic life — the same from the 
lowest animal inhabiting a stagnant pool up to the glori- 
ous mechanism of the human form, a common unity 
of adaptation and adjustment up to life's highest 
accomplishment and result — the adjustments known as 
sensation, perception, consciousness, and thinking — an 
efficient correspondence between the impressions of 
sense and certain corresponding realities of external 
nature. This direct perception of the necessity of 
doing one thing in order to attain another thing is one 
of the highest among the preadjusted harmonies of 
nature." * The conception is not only philosophically 
important and essential to reflection, therefore, but has 
the most practical bearings upon living. There is not 
needed the mind disciplined in the schools to recognize 
its import. It lies on the surface of things, and belongs 
to the primary lessons of the race. It was a familiar 
thought of Emerson that " this perception of matter is 
made the common sense : and for cause." f " This," he 
says, " was the cradle, this the go-cart of the human 
child. We must learn the homely laws of fire and water ; 
we must feed, wash, plant, build. These are the ends of 
necessity, and first in the order of nature. Poverty, 
frost, disease, debt, are the beadles and guardsmen that 

♦ Duke of Argyll. " Unity of Nature." 
f Emerson. " Social Aims." 



The Instrument of Education 107 

hold us to common sense. The common sense that does 
not meddle with the absolute, but takes things at their 
word — things as they are — believes in the existence of 
matter, not because we can touch it or conceive of it, 
but because it agrees with ourselves, and the universe 
does not jest with us, but is in earnest — this is the 
house of health and life. . . . Xature is an enor- 
mous system, but in mass and in particle curiously 
available to the humblest need of the little creature 
that walks the earth." 

That in the world which makes it to be knowable 
and serviceable is its rationality, its reasonableness, 
the kinship it reveals to the human, adaptable, resource- 
ful mind of man. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE INSTRUMENT OF EDUCATION 

(Continued) 

Thkoughout the last paragraph has gone the im- 
plication that in the mind also which makes the 
world to be knowable is its rationality. Here man and 
beast are poles apart. " The world," said Sir Thomas 
Browne, " was made to be inhabited by beasts ; but to 
be studied and contemplated by man: this is the hom- 
age we pay for not being beasts." The human mind 
classifies and values its experiences ; it consei"ves and 
idealizes them; it compares them and resolves their 
implications ; it holds them valid for prediction, and 
plans a future in terms of tlieir promises. If mind 
were not, knowledge would cease to be. As the eye 
exists for light and the light for an eye, as ear and 
sound are correlative, lung and air, food and the body, 
so thing and thought creations exist for the mind. 
" Here stretches out of sight, out of conception even, 
this vast nature, daunting, bewildering, but all-pene- 
trable, all self-similar — an unbroken unity — and tlie 
mind of man is the key to the whole." Contact between 
the two is the point of beginning or continued mental 
activity, and so of growth. Nature is to be understood, 

108 



The Instrument of Education 109 

not merely perceived. Its phenomena are subject to 
explanation, and calculation, and prediction. To the 
resourceful mind its forces have derived uses and 
meanings hidden from rude seeing. Here science but 
reinforces the poet who 

" Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
Not God's, and not the beast's: God is; they are; 
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be," 

and from both distinguishes man as 

" Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns 
Because he lives, which is to be a man. ' ' 

To the unthinking the world exists as crass material 
only. It becomes obstruction, or serves the ends of 
barter, of provender, and woof. The unyielding ele- 
ments are met with repining or indifference or stoical 
ignorance. Comfort comes from an environment that 
metes out coveted favors. To the unthinking, discom- 
fort justifies murmur if not revolt; to the reflecting 
man, both comforts and discomforts are conditions to 
be studied, understood, and explained. In the pres- 
ence of intelligence every phenomenon of nature is a 
question — it suggests the possibility of an answer, and 
challenges the mind for interpretation. It is the busi- 
ness of the mind to know, and, knowing, come to com- 
prehend that 

"There's nothing of so singular nor mean 
Condition in the universe, but what 
It doth include, and, in a sort, continue 



110 Science of Education 

The fact of something greater than itself. 

Nothing is, 

But by the having been of something else, 
Which something else, the cause of this thing here, 
Is, in its turn, the effect of something elsewhere. 
Thus we the higher in the lower perceive; 
From each obtain intelligence of all; 
And find in all the consciousness of each." 

This is the primary vocation of the mind, to trace 
the thread of connection and dependence among things ; 
to find the way, and why, and aim of each in the whole 
as universe ; its use for beauty or defence ; its value in 
the inventory of things ; what man means, and cloud ; 
heat and the ways of earth ; the ocean, the mountains, 
human society, industry, and leisure; and the measure 
of each in the common life of thing and soul. This is 
more than perception, and appeals to human reason 
and imagination. It involves powers of inference and 
deduction ; thinking things as they may be, but other 
than they are; forming notions of the possible, because 
reasonable. That in the mind which makes the world 
to be knowable is the mind's rationality; its power of 
apprehending unity in multiform appearances ; a recog- 
nition of the individual or particular as representing 
a type ; an intelligent appreciation of what is more and 
what less important in maintaining the integrity of 
the whole. This is the "common sense" referred to; 
this ability to know things, and man, their meanings, 
and how to use them; how to adapt them to human 
needs, each and all, and find them fit to enrich the life. 
It is the human, not the philosopher's point of view, 



The Instrument of Education 111 

the man's, not the beast's. It fixes the sphere of know- 
ing, and hints at the order of growth. In the large, 
it means civilization; in the individual, education. It 
includes not doing only, but intelligent doing; the see- 
ing, and hearing, and reading that have solvent mind 
behind them. " From the beginning," says Colonel 
Parker,* " man's growth and development have utterly 
depended, without variation or shadow of turning, upon 
his search for God's laws, and his application of them 
when found," and that " the leaf and flower, the mists 
and clouds that tell their stories of the far-off ocean, 
the pebble on the beach, and the coal that bums in the 
grate, are, in themselves and their causes, revelations 
that human souls are capable of understanding. . . . 
The divine energy surrounds man, forms his environ- 
ment, and acts upon him with unspeakable power." 
But it comes in this way to man because of his under- 
standing mind. And the primary purpose of the school 
is to direct this human solvency upon the diverse par- 
ticulars endowing them with new meaning. The ani- 
mal sees not so. Like the animals, " man's first need 
is merely to live; his next, to make mere life divine.'* 

" Blessed art thou, O, man, at thy lowest, 
O, thou lord of the hand and the thought I 

All things are thine; 
All things combine 
In a strenuous design 
To make thee divine." 

* Parker. " Talks on Pedagogics," pp. 150-151. 



112 Science of Education 

Now, from the point of view of tiie mind, education 
is the result of self -initiated effort to apprehend and 
employ this nature to its own uses. From the point 
of view of the world of phenomena and action, educa- 
tion is occasioned by the adaptation and ready adjust- 
ment of this cosmic thought to the mind's need. " It 
is the pupil's own free, intelligent, personal effort to 
learn," said Dr. Hinsdale, " that is the constant factor 
in education." It is the ever present, aggressive, and 
multiform nature impinging upon the nerves that 
arouse tlie mind to action, asserts another. 

In tlieir respective spheres both are true. Neither 
universe is efficient for either knowledge or growth 
without the other. Upon the surface and to the casual 
observer mind seems to be the active factor, and the 
environing complex of deed and occurrence as j^assive. 
Not upon the surface alone, however, but in the thought 
of the philosopher also, of whatever school, the initia- 
tive of the learner is vital and ever-present. " Man 
differs from animals in many respects, but in none so 
much as in his faculty to advance or hinder the forces 
that work for or against his own development." * In 
both the individual and the race tlie mind is more than 
a receiving agent; through both experience and instinct 
it is an active and often conscious factor in not only 
selecting but excluding the raw material for its fur- 
nishing. Very early in its history the mind comes to 
see what it wants to see, and hear what it purposes to 
use and enjoy, and group its experiences in a more or 
* Edmond Kelly. " Evolution and Effort," p. 37. 



The Instrument of Education 113 

less independent way. It is not enough that the eyes 
be open before a beautiful landscape in order to enjoy 
it or understand it; there is needed attention — a posi- 
tive and more or less purposeful bias of the mind 
toward it, an effort of the will, and a measure of con- 
scious holding to of the interest; a forceful, aggi'essive 
gathering to one's self of nature's spread-out attraction. 
The processes that are really educative imply this selec- 
tive exercise of mind, rather than any mere drifting 
among importunate happenings, or taking in gross, the 
dicta of the printed page, or following without question 
the words of authority. There is involved a sense of 
free initiative in dealing with these external phenom- 
ena, a consciousness of the mind as going upon a 
mission, vitalized with some original intention, as op- 
posed to the apathy or mental indifference of a colorless 
laissez faire. Such effort is accompanied by the con- 
fidence that comes with all success or personal mastery, 
a belief in one's self, a conscious assurance of insights 
that are one's own, a conviction that negatives mere 
sufferance or the dependent trailing after another's 
testimony or bidding. All best education is competi- 
tive, a struggle waged by the mind against unworthy, 
or false, or ugly experiences, aggressively contending 
for those it conceives to be worth while, and defending 
itself against the solicitous encroachments of ready- 
made judgments, the wealth of interest in one's environ- 
ments, the discouragements of ignorance. It means, 
very early in the child's life, a beginning of the privi- 
lege and the habit of self-direction ; making excursions 



114 Science of Education 

in the field of truth and right and beauty from an 
inner motive ; frequent and, in time, long-continued 
research, as against the unthinking acceptance of an 
insistent belief or theory or platform. This conception 
of education makes provision for personal aspiration, 
the preference of the individual for one good rather 
tlian another, for one interpretation over others, and 
its realization. It means, in a measure, the conform- 
ing of the life, rather than the being conformed. In- 
terests are thought of, not as chance and inert, but 
positive and self-directed ; in the main, control is from 
"witliin, not from without. An emphasis is placed upon 
purpose and alertness as against aimlessness and slug- 
gishness. In the same way, deliberate acts are preferred 
to those directed by impulse; and a right disposition — 
a conscious active attitude of the mind — to mere capa- 
bility, however great, if it lack the jDush of a strong 
intent. Finally, in this conception of education, recog- 
nition is accorded to the substitution of abiding aims 
for present and transient ones. The author of an ad- 
mirable little volume, " Evolution and Effort," * quoted 
above, says : " The essential difference between man and 
beast seems to consist in a faculty possessed by man to 
abstain from present pleasure in order to escape a 
future pain, or to suffer a present pain in order to 
enjoy a future pleasure." This is the principle of 
providence in a large sense, and stands for a whole- 
some initiative and self-direction. In a religious sense 
it means the substitution of a higher good for a lower, 
* Bdmond Kelly. " Evolution and Effort," p. 29. 



The Instrument of Education 115 

or a good for an evil, even at the expense of real or 
supposed present comfort; in the economic world it is 
opposed to prodigal consumption and thriftless ways; 
in the intellectual life, to dawdling and dissipation and 
pretense. In short, not only from the point of view 
of the mind, but in the terms of a rational pedagogy, 
the mind's initiative is an essential factor in all learn- 
ing and growth ; a condition, dynamic, not static ; 
effort, — serious, intelligent, honest, unremitting, and ex- 
tended effort, not apathy, nor yet indifference. Growth 
is not to be measured in terms of a rich and attractive 
environment, nor the learning and many words of one's 
preceptor, nor the conveniences and comforts of one's 
family life, but rather by his reactions upon these. 

In his " Mechanism and Personality," Dr. Shoup 
groups man's acquisitions in two classes: (1) those 
which come to be his, subjectively and organically, and 
(2) those which come to be his objectively and arti- 
ficially. To the former belong strength of muscle, 
sagacity of mind, decision and honesty of character; 
to the latter may be assigned wealth, station, honor, 
friends. " The difference between the two classes," he 
continues, " is like that between fruit actually grow- 
ing upon a tree and the tied-on fruit one sees at Christ- 
mas-tide for children. ISTow this real and true fruit 
of mind and heart and will can be had in no way but 
by and through self-effort." But there is more than a 
modicum of truth in the counter proposition also that 
from the plane of the phenomenal world education is 
occasioned from without. The eye is fitted to receive 



116 Science of Education 

and transmit to the brain the waves of light, and the 
ear those of sound, the olfactory nerves are sensitive 
to the inward moving odoriferous particles, the taste 
papillae in the mouth are aroused to action by the 
presence over their surfaces of flavor-bearing solubles. 
Added to these there is the fruitful sense of touch and 
its accompanying minor modifications. The senses are 
so many open avenues between an infinitely fluid uni- 
verse driving in upon them and the sensitive nervous 
system where, or by which, or in terms of which, im- 
pressions are translated into forms of meaning. The 
phenomena beset the mind on every hand. Like waves 
of the ocean beating upon the shore, they make assault 
upon the mind, often unnoticed, sometimes compelling 
recognition, always leaving marks of their presence. 
Every sense is subject to this invasion. Through all 
waking hours the attack is incessant. Matter, motion, 
and force constitute a universe that impinges upon the 
body on every side like a closely fitting atmosphere of 
impressions and suggestions. Often their phenomena 
coerce attention. " That the sensibilities are com- 
pelled," says Dr. Shoup, " to receive whatever is im- 
pressed upon them by stimuli, without the possibility 
of the sensibilities themselves varying their reaction in 
response to such stimuli, is easily seen. In a given 
state of my visual organs, and with my eyes fixed upon 
a page, can they create or drive away the characters 
which I see ? If a sharp instrument be thrust into my 
flesh, is the pain of my making? can I bid it begin or 
cease ? . . . By the understanding, too, I am made 



The Instrument of Education 117 

to know the meaning of the words on the printed page ; 
that the instrument is sharp and has pierced my flesh ; 
that the rose has an agreeable perfume — can it do less 
or more ? " Add to this the human environment of 
association and books and art and human ideals and 
one's o^vn inherited biases, that, with the material en- 
vironment, contends for place among the mind's inter- 
ests, and one easily comes to think that what the mind 
really does attend to, and the forms of one's growth, 
are the chance effect of occasion and circumstance. 

Life in a mountain region, having little contact with 
the outside world, simple interests and provincial cus- 
toms, not only reflects different social and personal 
conditions, but reveals widely different results of cult- 
ure and efficiency from those attendant upon life in a 
populous centre of manifold conventional codes and 
abundant means and leisure. The " thrust " of a busy 
life, having an intense and varied intellectual and 
industrial commerce, is both more direct and urgent 
than that of the shut-in valley, or of a people behind 
closed doors. That the influence is often with unper- 
ceived effect does not imply that there is no effect. 
Rural quiet and city clamor, picturesque landscapes 
and mountainous wastes, world-wide interests and shut- 
in customs, a cultivated environment and coarse ways, 
diversity of industries and primitive occupations, a 
home with interesting household comradeships and the 
home that offers only a place to stay — each stimulates 
in its own way, and the opportunities for a rich intel- 
lectual and moral and economic life differ greatly. A 



118 Science of Education 

meagre environment is less alluring. The strongest 
mind even waits on suggestion, and a mendicant nature 
easily pauperizes thought. A fertile and varied life of 
occurrence and achievement stimulates reaction. 

That there may be too much does not prove that there 
may not here and there be too little, or an environment 
of the wrong sort, or badly distributed. It is sufficient 
to say that, looked at from without the mind, it easily 
appears that, whatever may be the personal initiative, 
education is occasioned by the incessant bearing down 
upon the senses of an almost infinitely varied and 
exigent nature. Through a sometimes distressing ex- 
perience tlie mind is driven to defend itself against the 
encroachment. In time one learns to be selective, ad- 
mitting some, excluding others; but to the young, for 
most of the school period, the enthusiasms of the mind 
to know are quite equalled by the enthusiasms of nature 
to be known. " Nature," writes Emerson, " is the 
incarnation of thought, and turns to thought again. 
. . . every moment instructs, and every object; for 
wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured 
into us as blood ; it convulsed us as pain ; it slid into 
us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy 
days, or in days of cheerful labor; and we did not 
guess its essence until after a long time." 

In a more than merely figurative sense this nature is 
a busybody, and looks to it that man's mind is not left 
unattended. The same author continues : " We eat the 
head which grows in the field, we live by the air that 
blows around us, and we are poisoned by the air which 



The Instrument of Education 119 

is too cold or too hot, too dry or too wet. Time, which 
shows so vacant, indivisible, and divine in its coming, is 
slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to be 
painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil or 
meat or salt; the house smokes or I have a headache; 
then the tax, and an affair to be transacted with a man 
without heart or brains, and the stinging recollection 
of an injurious or awkward word — these eat up the 
hours. . . . We are instructed by these petty ex- 
periences which usurp the hours and the years." And, 
on a later page of the same essay,* the author adds: 
" The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his 
senses, commanded by eveiy sight and sound, without 
any power to compare or rank his sensations, aban- 
doned to a whistle or a painted chip, to lead a dragoon 
or a ginger-bread dog, individualizing everything, gen- 
eralizing nothing, delighted with every new thing — lies 
down at night overpowered with the fatigue which the 
day of continual petty madness has incurred. But 
nature has answered her purpose with the curly dim- 
pled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has 
secured the symmetrical growth of his bodily frame — 
an end not to be entrusted to any care less perfect than 
her own." Does anyone suppose that any assignment 
of tasks in an unyielding routine, or any doing from 
a sense of duty, could have inspired from the outside 
more fruitful effort? Is the effect less wholesome be- 
cause the child is led on instead of being coerced, or 
led by his own joy in the chase rather than for an 

* Emerson. " Essay on Nature." 



120 Science of Education 

external and artificial advantage? ISTatiire's beckoning 
and comradeship are not less in evidence than her 
exacting lessons and her penalties. From the objective 
world every step in the education of the child is occa- 
sioned from without. 

It need scarcely be pointed out that while there is 
this opposition of the inner and outer, there is no an- 
tagonism. In all of its uses each is what it is because 
of the other. They are two terms of one series, either 
of which may be considered first, according to the 
critic's point of view. They are mutually adaptable 
in a marvellous way. 

Once more, touching tliis second of the four funda- 
mentals in the idea of education : the change is an ever- 
recurring process of self-estrangement and the return, 
a process by which the mind identifies the thought 
without and that within the individual experience. In 
his editorial comments upon Rosenkranz's treatment of 
the " form of education," Dr. Harris * says : " Self- 
estrangement as here used [by Rosenkranz] is perhaps 
the most important idea in the philosophy of educa- 
tion." Dr. Harris explains the idea by recounting the 
three stages in education : ( 1 ) the undeveloped mind — 
that of the infant — wherein nearly all is potential, and 
but little is actualized; (2) self -estrangement, wherein 
it is absorbed in the observation of objects around it; 
(3) the discovery of laws and principles (universality) 
in external nature, which it finally identifies with 
reason, the spirit becoming at home in nature. This 

* Rosenkranz's "Philosophy of Education," p. 27. 



The Instrument of Education 121 

last is said to constitute tlie removal of the estrange- 
ment The author himself says : " All culture, what- 
ever may be its special purport, must pass through 
these two stages — of estrangement and its removal. 
Culture must intensify the distinction between subject 
and object, or that of immediateness, though it has 
again to absorb this distinction into itself." 

In the beginning of the mental life, and indeed for 
some years, the objects and movements of nature, and 
the motives and behavior of men, the significance of art, 
and the industries, and ideals, seem merely external 
and something strange. Their nature is alien ; con- 
tact seems only an accident. The mental life at this 
stage is a voyage of discovery. Things must be expe- 
rienced, tested, and used ; other persons, their achieve- 
ments and ideals, as Avell. All happenings are worked 
over in terms of the knowing and enjoying mind. The 
spirit within is met by a kindred spirit without. As 
he daily grows in an understanding of himself, so he 
comes to understand them. They are capable of being 
understood. The outer and inner are found to be of 
kin. Things are no longer foreign. Thoughts are 
things under another form. Things are saturated with 
thought. A thing would cease to be a thing if it had 
not thought to give it meaning. It becomes interesting 
as it is found to be explainable. The horizon of the 
mind's understanding is extended. There arises a 
growing consciousness that all happenings and doings 
have meaning; that trees and trade and self and other 
selves and art and hope and belief, society and history, 



122 Science of Education 

species and types, all stand for something, and are 
significant of facts, or a fact, larger than their crude 
exhibitions, and of a nature with our own, because of 
this underlying common reasonableness. 

This bald statement of fact is given poetic setting by 
Colonel Realf in the following stanzas, well worth 
knowing : 

INDIRECTION 

Fair are the flowers and the children, 

but their subtle suggestion is fairer; 
Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, 

but the secret that clasps it is rarer ; 
Sweet the exultance of song, 

but the strain that precedes it is sweeter ; 
And never was poem yet writ, 

but the meaning outmastered the meter. 

Never a daisy that grows, 

but a mystery guideth the growing ; 
Never a river that flows, 

but a majesty sceptres the flowing ; 
Never a Shakespeare that soared, 

but a stronger than he did enfold him ; 
Nor ever a prophet fortells, 

but a mightier seer hath foretold him. 

Great are the symbols of being, 

but that which is symboled is greater ; 
Vast the creation beheld, 

but vaster the inward Creator; 
Back of the sound broods the silence ; 

back of the gift stands the giving ; 
Back of the hand that receives 

thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. 



The Instrument of Education 123 

Space is as nothing to spirit ; 

the deed is outdone by the doing ; 
The heart of the wooer is warm, 

but warmer the heart of the wooing. 
And up from the pits where these shiver, 

and up from the heights where those shine, 
Twin voices and shadows float starward ; 

and the essence of life is divine. 

One does not come to this conception directly or easily. 
The idea is of slow growth, but tlie growth is of the 
nature of all real education, and compasses the process 
called " Self-estrangement and its removal." Herein 
is to be found, it would seem, tlie programme for all 
directed education ; that things knowable shall be 
known not objectively and on the surface, as something 
barnacled onto the life, but subjectively and through 
identifying their inner reasons with those of the mind. 
The measure of his attainment, for anyone, is not what 
he has been told, not what he holds of the forms into 
which knowledge has been stereotyped, not his assur- 
ance even of the authority of one who does know; but 
his own direct or indirect insights into this soul of 
things and ideas ; this first-hand contact of the intelli- 
gence within and that without; in consciousness and 
appropriation, to have resolved appearances into their 
meanings. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE MOTIVE IN EDUCATION 

3. Education, in the conception here offered, pre- 
supposes, further, an internal free impulse to know 
and grow. Both are tendencies, and appear in what 
may, in a pedagogical, not psychological, sense, be 
called instinct. They assume very unlike forms, and 
are constitutional impulses which, in varying degrees, 
are universal to childhood, and most of which, in one 
form or another, persist into and through adult years. 
By writers on teaching and directed education such 
active biases are very properly known as instincts, and 
are variously inventoried. 

In general, instinct is defined as the faculty of act- 
ing in such way as to produce fairly uniform results 
without foresight of the results. Because of this latter 
condition the action is called " blind." Bascom limits 
instinct exclusively to physical action; and most psy- 
chologists, to the brute animals. James, however, 
asserts that " man has a far greater variety of impulses 
than any lower animal ; and any one of these impulses, 
taken in itself, is as ^ blind ' as the lowest instinct can 
be " ; and again he says : " Man possesses all the im- 
pulses animals have, and a great many more." Some 

124 



The Motive in Education 125 

of these impulses have definite educational bearings, 
and are rich in meaning for the teacher. They have 
become promising fields for investigation by child- 
study enthusiasts. It is not the present purpose to 
make instincts a subject of inquiry, nor to specify their 
direct relations to teaching, but to discuss the signifi- 
cance of typical instincts in the science of education. 

The following may be given as comprising most of 
those that are generic in form and important in account- 
ing for the child's development. Categorically, they 
include : the love of activity, the imitative impulse, the 
tendency to investigation, the gregarious instinct, love 
of the soil, a sense of rhytlim, and the faith instinct. 
While including most of these, Preyer names at least 
three others that do not readily fall into either of the 
seven classes given — pugnacity, the hunting instinct, 
and the dramatic sense. Sociability and shyness, also 
mentioned by Preyer, seem to be only modifications of 
the gregarious instinct, or love of, regard for, society, 
noted above. So of fear. Constructiveness takes its 
rise probably in the imitative propensity. The seven 
named seem fairly comprehensive and reasonably dis- 
tinct. They are recorded here as the chief pedagogical 
impulses that must be regarded in any serious consid- 
eration of the stages of which, and the forces in terms 
of which, the individual or the race comes to its ma- 
turity. Each is deserving of some consideration. 

Activity. — This impulse is both physical and mental, 
and, on its active side, finds expression in a craving 
for and tendency toward the exercise of function — 



126 Science of Education 

mere exercise of function, as " blind " as any instinct 
to the result to be accomplished in the organism, but 
affording pleasure in the mere doing and in the accom- 
panying achievements. Naturally in the earlier years 
this headlong and incessant being-busy-at-any-and- 
everything is chiefly physical. The muscles crave ex- 
ercise, the bones and other tissues are expanding, and 
discover an uneasiness that demands use, and use to 
weariness. It is a period of growth, and every cell 
and every organ are so many points of energy of horse- 
power pressure seeking an outlet, work to do. But the 
constitutional joy in doing is mental also. To be on 
the alert, attentive to passing interests, intellectually 
foraging in regions promisingly fruitful, quick to scent 
a clue or meaning, and tireless in following it to a 
finish — this is of the nature of the pervasive and catholic 
instinct of activity. 

All sound teaching practice must take this impulse 
into account. Once aroused and properly directed 
the work of the teacher is practically done. It is 
an important factor in all " self-teaching." In the 
long centuries of the race's existence before formal 
instruction this deep-seated, organic sense of crav- 
ing real and frequent contact with nature was man's 
security — both motive and guide. It remains the 
teacher's most effective ally in formal education. All 
effort at guidance that fails to regard it is either fruit- 
less or mischievous. In all growth or acquisition or 
achievement this blind impulse to activity is vital, and 
a comprehension of its meanings of far-reaching con- 



The Motive in Education 127 

sequence to the teacher. It re-enforces every suggestion 
of the class-room and is the measure of profit in every 
exercise. It is as if every unit of steam-force intro- 
duced into the steam-chest were re-enforced by an inner 
predisposition of the piston and cylinder to do just the 
work which the two accomplished ; as if the machine 
met the energy more than half way in some common 
impulse. This the mind does; its feelers are out and 
the mind is on the hunt for any interesting appearance 
or inviting situation. It meets nature more than half 
way. 

The aggressive, vaguely discriminating impulse to 
do, to make, to know, and to enjoy in the presence 
of a near-by, many-sided, and stimulating nature mul- 
tiplies its opportunities amazingly. To the degree that 
he possesses it, the impulse makes every child an orig- 
inal explorer, a naturalist keeping in close touch with 
a promising environment, if perchance some of its 
secrets may be discovered ; each day on a new expedi- 
tion, ever alert, eager to see, and use, and make over, 
and try experiments, and test his powers ; play at being 
somebody or something else than he is ; now comrade 
to the beast, and now his master ; doing, thinking, feel- 
ing, wondering, for sheer joy in the act. This living 
in the present, a ceaseless, shapeful activity, accounts 
for much self-knowledge and self-mastery, binds up a 
fund of experience, is provident of both the understand- 
ing and the heart, and furnishes an open door for all 
teaching. 

Imitation, — This is not, certainly, a simple instinct, 



128 Science of Education 

but, nevertlieless, a well-defined constitutional impulse 
to take on actions in consequence of seeing them per- 
formed; borrowing postures of body and states of 
mind; an inspection of outside conditions. "It de- 
velops," says Dr. Harris, " on the one hand, into habits 
or customs or morals — and this is the will-side of 
human mind; and on the other hand it develops into 
perception, memory, ideas, and insights — this being the 
intellectual side of mind." Preyer thinks that there 
is present always a voluntary element. Wundt and 
Baldwin and some others regard the tendency as being, 
in the beginning, at least, impulsive. Certainly voli- 
tion appears very soon in child experience, and the 
imitation with which the teacher is concerned is more 
or less voluntary, and measurably purposed. It means 
some command of one's organs and a beginning in the 
control of their functions. 

N'o more important contribution has been made to 
genetic psychology than this reference of the develop- 
ment of willed actions to the early and persistently 
repeated efforts of the child to imitate something. It 
is fruitful of suggestion for all educational movements, 
not during childhood alone, but throughout life. 

Aristotle taught that " man is the most imitative of 
animals, and makes his first steps in learning by aid of 
imitation." The function of imitation has been charac- 
terized as " the key to educational psychology." This 
" evolution of the higher faculties out of the lower," 
a development begun in imitative acts. Dr. Harris 
regards as the main pedagogic interest in psychology. 



The Motive in Education 120 

It stands for interest at first hand, personal effort, a 
sufficient plasticity to take up into one's own mind the 
external manifold, suggestibility. Sj>eaking of the 
child, Professor James says : " His whole educability, 
and in fact the whole history of civilization, depend 
on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, 
jealousy, and inquisitiveness re-enforce." In much the 
same meaning, Mr. Thomdyke says : " Progress would 
be inconceivably slow if we had to wait for each indi- 
vidual to invent every reform, or new idea, or new 
method for himself." But this is not necessar)^ Theo- 
retically, and in varying degrees, by imitation, what- 
ever is done or practised by the few or many in one's 
surroundings may become the possession of each ; he 
may " repeat for himself the tliinking and doing and 
feeling of his fellows, and so enrich his own life by 
adding to it the lives of others." The process is one 
of assimilation ; and, as an apprentice, the child gradu- 
ally absorbs the master's point of view, his handling 
of affairs, his knowledge, his personal attitude. But 
as true imitation is the act of rational, self-active 
beings only, the reaction makes the act copied his own. 
It is not of itself a self -surrender, but may be, generally 
is, a self-centred assimilation in which the self finds 
expression, and the experience becomes such as to lend 
itself to original initiative. 

This appears to be the case in the imitation that 
is the basis of contrivance or adjustment, in what is 
called practical construction, an elementary form 
of the practical imagination. It is evident that this 



130 Science of Education 

learning how to do things, to write, or sing, or eat, 
or speak in public, or farm, or calculate, or observe, 
is made through imitation a means of discovering 
new movements, new vocabularies, new arts, new 
processes, new habits, etc. To have reproduced well 
what has been well done by another, and many times 
to have accomplished this feat, not because one 
must, but because one chose to do so, makes easier the 
following of the suggestions of one's OAvn mind. And 
this is the initiative that makes for self-reliance. All 
personal improvement implies the presence of personal 
effort in the act; and to the degree that the imitation 
is spontaneous or interested, and not forced, the im- 
pulse is sane and wholesome. It has a large field for 
its exercise and bears far-reaching consequences. Pro- 
fessor Royce sees in imitation " the one source of our 
whole series of conscious distinctions between subject 
and object, thought and truth, deed and ideal, impulse 
and conscience, inner world and external world " ; and 
through it Gabriel Tarde conceives " the entire social 
order to develop from individual initiative." The idea 
has come into rich inheritance. In the mind of the 
pedagogue, not less than the psychologist, the movement 
stands for large things. 

Mr. Thorndyke, previously quoted, mentions three 
ways of learning: (1) by trial and occasional success; 
(2) by imitation, the model being either directly in- 
fluential or working to direct our trials; and (3) by 
getting ideas, i.e., from explanations. The first and 
second are often combined, and the process chiefly char- 



The Motive in Education 131 

acterized as imitation. The third way is a distinctly 
rational process, and belongs to man as man. He says : 
'' The chief difference between human nature and dog 
and cat nature is that man has the idea method of 
learning." But, in the main, one's education is, in a 
large way, a process belonging to one or the other of 
the first two classes; and, probably, in both of them, 
the factor of imitation is more or less present. The 
mind is suggestible. And imitation has been described 
as one side of a tendency of which the other is sugges- 
tion. " When one sets an example to others, and it is 
followed, what does he do but inoculate them with the 
idea of doing or being that thing ? " For there is in 
mind a very evident tendency to carry out any move- 
ment vividly suggested at the moment. So sympathy, 
also, is an auxiliary of imitation ; and while there is 
more or less pronounced tendency to imitate for the 
sake of imitating, or in mere delight at testing one's 
powers, there is a strengthened " tendency to imitate 
most what one attends to most — probably tlie acts of 
one he most admires," or loves or honors. 

This somewhat indiscriminate tendency to reproduce 
in one's experience what one sees or hears or feels in 
one's environments, Mr. Baldwin calls " plastic imita- 
tion," and takes " to represent the general fact of that 
normal suggestibility, which is the very soul of our 
social relationships with one another." It is the pri- 
mary means of social development, the faculty by which 
education is made possible, because mind is sensitive to 
its environment and responsive to its moods and mean- 



132 Science of Education 

ings ; in no sense nor degree passively helpless and 
inert, but aggressively assimilative and centripetal, 
interested, and acquisitive. The imitator thus becomes 
an interpreter of what he sees and reproduces; he is 
at once dramatist and actor, personating in his own life 
the behavior or purposes or achievements of another. 
In interested imitations are the beginnings of effort and 
preference and self-direction. Herein, also, is one 
form of the only motive in the learner to which valid 
appeal may be made by the teacher. As re-enforcing 
the general instinct of activity, imitation is a powerful 
factor in all education. 

Investigation. — In popular phrase, the child is curi- 
ous and questioning. Things and their happenings, 
and people, their doings and institutions, and his own 
experiences, are interesting. His questioning is as 
impelling and not-to-be-escaped as his imitativeness. 
" I count nothing human alien to me," says Professor 
James, " is the motto of each individual of the species." 
All things lend themselves to his pleased scrutiny. 
But investigation carries an added meaning. It stands 
for a more or less critical analysis of his world of per- 
ception. In its formal definition, to investigate means 
" to follow up, step by step, by patient inquiry or ob- 
servation; to trace or track mentally; to inquire (in 
the more advanced stages) and examine into with care 
and accuracy; to find out by careful inquisition." In 
the higher forms investigation is known as study and 
research ; sometimes as experiment. In all essentials 
of the process, however, tlie child is quite as investiga- 



The Motive in Education 133 

tive as is the adult. The term employed is generic and 
names a constitutional impulse. It is more than mere 
observation, which is often rambling and unthinking. 
Indeed, the questioning, interested investigation of the 
normal growing mind may deteriorate into mere look- 
ing and gazing, or bewilderment, through the discour- 
aging prohibitions or chidings of parents and teachers. 
The impulse represents a very real craving of the 
mind to understand, as far as it may be able, how things 
come to be, how changes are brought about, why per- 
sons behave as they do, the names of things, the uses 
of things observed; where things are made, and grow, 
and why, and how; their own relation to these things 
and persons and comforts and pleasures. This is the 
true " impulse to know." Here is the intellectual point 
of contact between mind and happening. To the un- 
spoiled child all knowledge is attractive. ISTothing that 
is is alien to his interest. It all exists for his use and 
enjoyment. What can he do with it ? What is it good 
for ? What is it made of ? Where does it grow ? 
Whose is it? May I have it? are questions which he 
is continually asking of himself and others. They 
plead for free commerce with a world whose markets 
are always full. He is like a conscious magnet, search- 
ing about among things if perchance there be filings 
that may be attracted and attached to itself. His 
clothes and food and person; his o^vn thoughts; the 
people about him and the motives of their behavior; 
earth, water, fire, and air; landscape and sky; occupa- 
tions and play; books and art; his lessons and exacting 



134 Science of Education 

codes — all invite explanation, his explanations, and a 
valuation in tenns of his understanding. The etymol- 
ogy of the term, not less than the nature of the impulse, 
precludes scrappiness and mere seeing; there is imj)lied 
a track, and the successive steps in following it to an 
issue ; progress along a line ; a sequence of meanings ; 
an interpretation of something in terms of a larger 
something. It is the mind's process of inventorying 
the world, his little world, the world that reaches him, 
and of the effort to pigeon-hole his ideas about it. 

In the beginning it is all very elementary ; the views 
are naturally all partial views, and most of them dis- 
torted in one way or another, and some of the expla- 
nations wrong ones ; but the chase is exciting, some 
true game is taken, and the hunter nourished and en- 
couraged for future more successful ventures. The 
impulse is the basis for the later, true, scientific habit; 
it initiates all real experiences, and accounts for and 
fixes the quality, not less than the sum, of one's usable 
knowledge. It is the one motive to which appeal can 
always be made by teacher or parent. It may not be 
apparent that the particular child cares to know the 
things, just those things the teacher knows, or wants 
to do the things the teacher assigns. But there are 
things, both to be known and to be done, which do 
attract him. What is really necessary to be kno^vn 
may be reached through reference to or starting from 
what he really does wish to know. This is the true 
incentive in schooling to both knowledge and conduct. 
For disorder or neglect of studies the pupil may be 



The Motive in Education 135 

V 

beaten or scolded or reproved ; restraints may be im- 
posed, or privileges withdrawn, and, maybe, with rea- 
son ; but they are not incentives to either learning or 
goodness. They are artificial, absurdly foreign to 
purpose, and are generally mischievous. To stimulate 
and guide his love of real knowledge, to furnish abun- 
dant opportunities for tlrinking in interesting lines, to 
accept the pupil's point of view as the one from which 
to take any broader or truer or different view, to see 
all, even the most desirable interests, as hinging upon 
his interests, is to reinforce one's teaching by one of 
the most effective agents for learning in the reach of 
the school. 

As this impulse underlies the analytic, discriminat- 
ing process, so imitation begins the constructive habit. 
That finds parts and their relation to the wholes of 
which they are parts ; this constructs new wholes by 
the combination of minor units already knoA\Ti. That 
is analytic, this synthetic; that is elementary, this, 
derived. But both are constitutional impulses, and are 
generative of important developments. The one is ac- 
quisitive, the other formative. The one regards learning 
as such; the other, doing. The one emphasizes knowl- 
edge; the other its organization. Deprived of either, 
the order of either individual or social groui:.h goes 
lame. The one factor which appears common to the 
two is the personal effort implied. There are salutary 
and convenient services which the teacher may render, 
but officious interference and dictation are not among 
them. Guidance may come from without, but the mo- 



186 Science of Education 

tive must come from within the child. The one really 
constant factor in whose virtue imitation escapes being 
a manifestation of servile dependence, and which lends 
to investigation its only merit, is this element of inter- 
nal endeavor, begotten of one's own desire; patient, 
confident, unyielding effort to realize a purpose. The 
imitation must be his copy of another's doing or hold- 
ing; the investigation his scrutiny, not a seeing or 
thinking through borrowed faculty. Achievement en- 
sues from the one, insight from the other; but they 
must both be held as a personal possession, not some- 
thing barnacled onto the life. 



CHAPTER X 
THE MOTIVE IN EDUCATION (Continued) 

The Gregarious Instinct. — It is not easy to charac- 
terize in a word the impulse meant to be described 
under this heading. Ward, in two volumes, undertakes 
to show that man is not naturally a social animal, 
though he admits that " before there were any arts he 
may have been gregarious." And Galton,* from a 
somewhat extended study of tlie trait among animals 
(especially cattle), undeveloped races, and contempo- 
rary western civilizations, concludes that gregarious- 
ness is almost universal, but that it is a slavish instinct 
and is a quality the opposite of sociality. Sully holds 
that, '' from the first, children are social beings." 
James, and most of the psychologists, concur in this 
opinion. Probably most thinkers agree that, in gen- 
eral, the members of all species of both animals and 
men tend to live in herds or communities — in groups — 
either from fear, a sense of helpless dependence, or for 
mutual intercourse. 

The term gregarious has been chosen to head this 
paragraph as least likely to be misunderstood by the 
reader. It is meant to cover in its meaning both 

* Galton. " Inquiries into Human Faculty," p. 68. 
137 



138 Science of Education 

helpful and dependent relations. In their several 
and very diverse manifestations these are far more 
numerous than may be even named here. They 
comprise the qualities called sociality, sociability, 
sociableness, companionableness, neighborliness, friend- 
liness, good fellowship, comradeship, brotherhood, phil- 
anthropy, benevolence, love, affection, sympathy, mutual 
regard, etc., as representing the mutually agreeable 
relations of concord and co-operation; i.e., social, as 
distinguished from the non-social and anti-social feel- 
ings, which are also social, as having reference to group 
connections. The word gregarious is meant to include 
also, as having reference to human associations and as 
taking their meaning from this fact — shyness, coyness, 
reserve, diffidence, timidity, bashfulness, fear, anger, 
hatred, antipathy, malevolence, rivalry, etc. ; and, fur- 
ther, those self-regarding traits, as love of approbation, 
love of admiration, self-complacency, pride, vanity, 
emulation, etc., which would have no meaning if others 
were not taken into account. 

All have reference to other and kindred beings, and 
belong to persons having community kinships. As 
Professor James puts it, " as a gregarious animal, man 
is excited both by the absence and by the presence of 
his kind : to be alone is one of the greatest evils." He 
covets companionship, even if it be not the most agree- 
able. Whatever may be true of the child at his birth, 
it is safe to say of him, when a few months have given 
him an individuality, a conscious sense of existence, 
that he craves personal relationships with his fellows. 



The Motive in Education 139 

There grows up a mutual influence of all and sundry 
members of his human surroundings. " All are parts 
of one whole ; each is unavoidably aifected by every 
other; we are bound up in one bundle of life with all 
men, and cannot live an isolated life if we would; we 
influence one another, whether we will or not; and 
tend unconsciously to draw others to our level, and are 
ourselves drawn toward theirs. We joy and suffer 
together whether we will or not, and grow or deterio- 
rate together." * In this very real sense man is a 
social being, and finds not unimportant limitations to 
his functions in this social environment. There is 
apparent in his nature a constitutional bias toward 
knowing, enjoying, and using this human environment 
that, as he enters into its experiences, becomes his 
larger self. It is intimately a part of his own being. 

In this love of society there are two well-defined 
phases, according as the impulse is self-regard ing or 
other-regarding. The practise or exercise of both of 
these by not only the child but the adult may be uncon- 
scious, and the end to be attained is generally so. The 
self-regarding companionships rest upon a liking for 
others to the end that the claims of personal satisfac- 
tion may be realized — maternal satisfactions, Mr. Sully 
gives as an example; sex gratifications, attachment, 
fondness, etc. The other-regarding impulses include 
sympathy, as a generic form, fellow-feeling, benevo- 
lence, humanity, etc. It is obvious that both impulses 
are factors in individual development and in efficiency. 

* King. "The Social Consciousness," p. 13. 



140 Science of Education 

In home and civic life, not less than in the school and 
in formal tuition, the presence or absence of these 
traits, or the degree to which they are present, will 
determine what can and what cannot be accomplished 
in one of personal efficiency, individual growth, the 
endowments of culture, and civic influence. The 
teacher has need to know these traits and their symp- 
toms " as a book." 

For the further present purpose the social relations, 
speaking analytically, may be classed as follows : 

(1) There is the influence which one individual 
exerts upon another or other individuals taken sepa- 
rately. This may be stimulating or the reverse. It 
may be wholesome or baneful. It may be self-regard- 
ing or other-regarding. It may be intended, as in the 
relations between teacher and pupil, or incidental and 
unconscious, as among children in play, or, generally, 
among adults. 

(2) There is the influence which each member of 
the group receives from another member. Of course 
the quality of this influence would be subject to varia- 
tions as is that under ( 1 ) . 

These two constitute the true personal relations, as 
distinct from the group and institutional relations 
to be named later. This influence of one upon one 
is basic and antecedent It initiates creeds and plat- 
forms and policies and methods and philosophies. 
" An institution " has been characterized as " the 
lengthened shadow of one man." History takes its 
rise in the strong man whose influence has perpetuated 



The Motive in Education 141 

itself among many. Inventions, comforts, codes, and 
customs bear the imprint, from the beginning, of this 
personal insight and personal service. Speaking of 
imitation as a factor in social life, Tarde says :* " It 
is not enough to recognize the imitative character of 
every social phenomenon. I go further and maintain 
that this imitative relation was not, in the beginning, 
as it often is later, a connection binding one individual 
to a confused mass of men, but merely a relation be- 
tween two individuals, one of whom, the child, is in 
process of being introduced into the social life, while 
the other, an adult, long since socialized, serv^es as the 
child's social model. As we advance in life, it is true, 
we are often governed by collective and impersonal 
models, which are usually not consciously chosen. But 
before we speak, think, or act as ' they ' speak, think, or 
act in our world, we begin by speaking, thinking, and 
acting as ' he ' or ' she ' does." 

Even in the complex life of the present day the 
child is subject to this personal limitation. In all 
learning, whether purposed or incidental, whatever 
other factors are discernible, this touch of one mind 
with one other mind, and not many minds, is of prime 
importance. This is not more true of the relations of 
pupil and teacher than of student and professor, child 
and parent, pew and pulpit, and the more varied com- 
panionships. The effective influence is the personal 
one. 

(3) But added to these more distinctly personal re- 
* Gabriel Tarde. " Social Laws " (trans, by H. C. Warren), p. 44. 



142 Science of Education 

lations there are tlie group conditions of the individual 
life, as shoAvn, first, in the influence which the indi- 
vidual has upon tlie group or local community of which 
he is a member. 

(4) The complement of this influence is that which 
the group has upon the individual. 

" Social group " is a very general term. As used 
in this discussion it is meant to exclude those perma- 
nent human associations that are known as institutions, 
and to include all other social bodies except the chance 
throng. There may be much or little organization, and 
more or less permanence. Their purpose may be to 
reinforce the service of one or another of the institu- 
tional organizations, or merely to satisfy some tempo- 
rary or local desire of the constituent units. Among 
such groups may be mentioned the neighborhood (as 
distinct from the town or village as a political unit) ; 
private associations, as political and civil organizations, 
law and order leagues ; public improvement societies ; 
trade and industrial societies, including the unions of 
laborers and employers, investment and promoting part- 
nerships, commercial and engineering ventures, corpo- 
rations, great and small ; cultural societies, including 
the familiar church adjuncts — young people's societies, 
missionary circles, charity orders, teaching bodies, etc. ; 
secular and civic philanthropic organizations ; scientific, 
historical, literary, art, and other cultural societies, and 
various less serious clubs and circles for pastime and 
pleasure. Besides these there are, in every consider- 
able neighborhood, the several social sets, coteries, and 



The Motive in Education 143 

familiar circles — friends who are brought together be- 
cause of kindred tastes and common experiences. 

Now between these group aggregates and the indi- 
vidual members of each there exist such relations as 
are competent to modify both. In both ^vays the reac- 
tions are sometimes very marked. It was a familiar 
thought with Emerson that these collateral and indirect 
relations are often most decisive. He said : " You send 
your boy to the school-master; but it is the children 
who give him his lessons." Not infrequently the neigh- 
borhood is more powerful, for good or evil, than the 
law or the church ; political societies make and unmake 
both governments and men ; improvement leagues fix 
the community's reputation and attitude toward affairs ; 
the opinions of every laborer and every employer are 
more or less determined by the teaching of his indus- 
trial organizations; the voluntary cultural societies 
constitute an important element in the lives of most 
men. 

In addition to being the product of personal effort 
and intelligence, every such organization in its ad- 
ministration and growth reflects the influence of its 
members severally. It affords an exercise-ground for 
leadership, stimulates to social reactions, and invites 
thought. By an alliance with his fellows the individual 
is made over in various ways. 

The relation is significant for the teacher. A 
clique of children, a neighborhood set, a room class, 
or a school population taken as a whole, may constitute 
a group as here described, exercising (apart from 



144 Science of Education 

formal lessons) an influence upon each unit of the 
group and receiving the impress of every one. Even 
the weak and negative characters share in fixing 
the aggregate and average standing of the group. One 
or a few positive tempers in a class-room may fix 
the disposition of the entire group. On the other 
hand, a concerted sentiment of loyalty and good 
sense among the majority of a class can set at 
naught the machinations of the most turbulent dis- 
turber. The same statement is equally applicable to 
group relations on the playground, in the home, and 
elsewhere. The individual is, in manifold ways, influ- 
enced by, and in turn influences, the group to which 
he belongs. 

Of course this condition of mutual dependence 
is confined to no age or class. The possible com- 
plexity of it is admirably set forth by Henderson* 
in the following words : ^' The citizen belongs to a 
family and occupies there a place as son, husband, or 
father. He attends the annual meeting of the family 
stock — the Browns or Smiths, the descendants of some 
Norman chief or pioneer of the Mayflower. He gives 
receptions to his neighbors, although the companies 
are composed of persons of many different families, 
churches, and parties, just because they are neighbors 
and friends. He may be a banker and belong to a 
bankers' club in the city, and yet as director or stock- 
holder be associated with twenty corporations, unions, 
and mutual benefit organizations. One may belong to 

* C. R. Henderson. " Social Elements," p. 58. 



The Motive in Education 145 

the upper four hundred,' and Lave his name in the 
Blue Book to mark his social rank. He may also have 
his circle of congenial friends and meet regularly with 
them for amusement and recreation. If you touch his 
philosophy you may find he holds with Kantians or 
Hegelians, or is a disciple of Spencer. He has a name 
in politics — Republican, Democrat, or Mugwump. 
When he goes to church he finds that a democratic 
Hegelian is at his right, a single-tax admirer of Words- 
worth is on his left, and a high-church reader of Walter 
Scott is behind him. By race he is connected with 
Irish and German peoples ; his mother-tongue is Eng- 
lish, and he has acquired French and Italian. Thus a 
single citizen may be so variously related that the 
threads of society are woven into his inmost soul, and 
he himself serves to weave a thousand others into the 
tapestry of the community life." 

But certain of man's social relations have become so 
fixed in the social organization as to have become per- 
manently established under the name and form of in- 
stitutions. These are the family, the state, the church, 
the school, and by some are added conventional society 
and industrial orders. They possess a form of im- 
mortality as transcending the life of the individ- 
ual, and give place to another set of social relations 
that are vastly important, both personally and his- 
torically. 

(5) To the four social relations already named 
there must be added the influence which the individual 
exercises upon the institution and 



146 Science of Education 

(6) The influence whicli tlie institution has upon 
the individual. 

As the first and second orders named are the primary 
personal relations, and the third and fourth the true 
social relations, so five and six constitute the distinctly 
historical relations. In the first pair are the roots of 
biography; in the second, sociology and ethics; in the 
tliird, history. 

History has to do with human conduct. In a bor- 
rowed sense only is the term applied to the lives of 
animals or the changing existence of things. Its ma- 
terial is rational doing, not mere action, and so takes 
hold upon conscious living. It implies purposive effort 
and its achievements. It means spirit at work, and at 
provident work. It regards human living, struggling, 
and achieving, and its records are man's deeds. But 
not all conduct is historical. In all history there is 
understood conduct in associated relations. It is not 
alone what man has done, but what he has done in 
conjunction with his fellows. The record of narrowly 
personal or individual doing would be biography in an 
elementary way, but not history. That regards the 
individual as an individual ; this, as one of many, sus- 
taining active relations with the many. In this conduct 
in associated relations man finds and expresses one of his 
larger selves. It transcends individual experience and 
interests, and concerns chiefly ideas that have become 
forces in the life of groups and nascent organizations. 
But history means yet more than human conduct in as- 
sociated relations ; it has regard to such human conduct 



The Motive in Education 147 

as has worked down into the life of the body of the 
people, and become organic as institutions. 

These institutions have been called above, the 
family, the state, the church, the school, and, possibly, 
conventional society and industrial organization. And 
the third group of human relations which the social 
instinct has worked out comprises (5) the influence 
which the individual directs upon the institution, and 
that (6) which the institution imposes upon the indi- 
vidual. The power of each institution over the indi- 
vidual and the privileges it confers, and the reactions 
of each individual upon the institution are comprehen- 
sive and vital. Consideration must be had of both 
youth and adults as not only conforming to existing 
ideals, but as originating or stimulating others ; respect- 
ful of tradition, but honest with one's self; assuming 
each his full share of responsibility for the integrity 
of this institutional life; loyal as a citizen in civic 
affairs; productive and provident in the industrial 
body; devout and tolerant touching the high ideals of 
the spirit; an effective member of the household; con- 
siderate of others' rights in the conventional order; 
and, by one's own refinement and scholarship, con- 
tributing to the general culture. 

The two additional phases of this social life are of 
less significance in the present discussion, and need 
only to be noted here to complete the classification; 
these are: 

(7) The influence which one group (see paragraph 
4) has upon the institution, and 



148 Science of Education 

(8) The influence which the institution has upon 
the group. As examples of the former may be named 
the reactions of political parties, law and order leagues, 
etc., upon the local and general government; the wide- 
spread influence of voluntary societies for learning and 
research upon the constitution and functions of the 
school ; the aggressive attitude of industrial organiza- 
tions toward legislation and civic affairs ; and the re- 
inforcement of the teachings of the church by associated 
lay societies. Under the latter may be noted the foster- 
ing care of most of the institutions expended upon vol- 
untary bodies organized for service under their respec- 
tive codes. ^' The freer a nation, the more developed 
we find it in larger and smaller spheres ; and the more 
despotic a government is, the more actively it suppresses 
all association." * 

Throughout this discussion it must have become 
apparent that with the development of these human 
relations there has gone along in the individual an in- 
teresting and a fuller recognition of others' rights and 
functions as set over against his OAvn. These, in their 
several ways, the numerous individuals about him 
whom, as individuals, he meets and with whom he has 
intercourse in the daily routine — these same individ- 
uals, associated in groups and aggregates, and all of 
them organized into institutions, become his larger 
selves, to whom also he owes allegiance. The " doing 
unto others as he would have others do to him " comes 

• Dr. Francis Lieber. " On Civil Liberty," Chap. xii. 



The Motive in Education 149 

to be a matter not of his heart only, but of the common 
good, in whose beneficence he also shares. 

The child is born as an individual ; he must grow to 
be a person. In this ever-present, complex, and stren- 
uous social environment he encounters other wills simi- 
lar to his owa, contentions equal to his most intelligent 
effort, and rights that, if they were his, would be valid 
for contest. He learns to practise concession, and be- 
comes considerate. The conception is often forced upon 
him that yielding is gain. In this social world (which 
is the moral world) profit comes through sharing, not 
holding. It becomes a habit first, then a principle, of 
his life to have regard for others. Having come thus, 
in his daily behavior, habitually to take others into 
account, he has relinquished his exclusive individuality, 
and becomes a person. The former is constitutional, 
the latter must be achieved. But it is one of the 
accepted functions of directed education to equip the 
individual by both knowledge and habit to participate 
in the life of the several institutions in terms of the 
codes which each has worked out. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE MOTIVE IN EDUCATION (Continued) 

Love of the Soil. — This seems to have all of the 
characteristics of a true constitutional impulse. Under 
the heading is to be considered, not so much the child's 
love of soil as soil, as the affinity and respect for stable 
and localized matter, the attachment to place and thing. 
But soil in its nature and uses is typical of both 
these ideas. It stands for material possession and kin- 
ships. Byron's phrase, " half dust, half deity," as 
cliaracterizing man, is not less true in terms of modem 
science than in the words of Moses and Solomon. In 
any event, there is between human beings and the earth 
home a sense of common nature that claims compan- 
ionship. 

It is believed that joy in the out-door life is 
native to childhood in a sense in which that in the 
artificial is not. Speaking generally, interest, an attrac- 
tive interest, in the arts must be acquired. Trees, and 
forest, and stretches of landscape; bodies and streams 
of water ; plants ; the native animals ; the storm, rain, 
snow, ice; the hillside, rocks, sand, plastic clay, even 
mud ; swimming in nature's pool ; coasting on the hill- 
side ; loitering along the streams ; fishing in the brooks ; 

150 



The Motive in Education 151 

hunting game; gathering berries, nuts, and fruits — 
nature's store of them; and following nature through 
the seasons, breasting the weather's inclemencies, and 
courting exposure ; rich in blood, abundant in energy, 
happy in this unrestrained, many-sided, continued-story 
sort of comradeship — what artificial regimen can equal 
it as a feast of fun and friendship? It means inter- 
course, and not appropriation. It means learning, with 
gift and leisure accompaniments. It means healthy 
effort shaped by gladness, not protest. 

To the natural mind, unspoiled by an excess of pre- 
scription, the things of nature easily take on the genius 
of personality that meets one more than half-way. The 
joys of this converse do not have to be manufactured. 
Nature is herself faculty, and can do things. Without 
the help of any clumsy hand, the soil grows an abund- 
ant larder; trees blossom and fruit, and cover them- 
selves; animals have their defences and mutual com- 
merce; the landscape, lavish decorations; the soil and 
water of a thousand slopes, a common understanding; 
and mountain and plain and sea bear in their capacious 
pockets the raw materials for incessant human wants. 

This untaught joy in a provident and prosperous 
nature is the beginning in man of wholesome uses and 
satisfactions. It offers one of the safest guarantees of 
a sound and serviceable body, and, in the beginning, 
the only real stimulus to thinking and artless doing. 
In the early days of the chase, and of flocks and herds, 
the race acquired notions of property as attached to the 
person — personal property. With the settled life of 



152 Science of Education 

agricultural society man became first attached to the 
soil as rooted in it. He began to have a local habitation. 
One comer of the earth at least was his, as the tree has 
a spot for its own. With the passing of the nomadic 
habit there came in time release from the inconstant 
mind also, and the wayward heart. The places of his 
abiding became man's abode, where were gathered not 
the members of tlie household only, but the appur- 
tenances of the family life, tools of the household eco- 
nomics, the beginnings of the morrow's prudence, and 
a sense of rights in the soil. And there grew up the 
conception and the claim of real property. In time, 
memories of struggle and achievement clustered about 
this spot of ground. It had personal associations and 
suggested comfort and leisure. Stores of providence 
gave contentment, and years of household co-operation 
gave pleasure. The place early became worthy of de- 
fence. It was his home, his fireside. 

Out of some such conception must have grown the 
sentiment of patriotism. He was ready to defend his 
life and, if need be, to die to secure his people and his 
property against danger. A commonwealth of such 
householders must command respect; a nation of such 
would be invincible. Love of home and love of country 
are two sides of the same spiritual fact. The soil in 
which this idea roots itself is the foundation of both 
impulses. 

In the child the instinct appears in a persistent 
interest in and a companionship with things, the things 
of earth, the soil — nature's great manufacturing plant, 



The Motive m Education 153 

the universal stock-ranch and life-garden — where things 
are made and grow and are exliibited. It appears also 
in his desire to have a place, and things of the place, 
for his very own — a comer of the yard, a strip of gar- 
den, an animal; something that shall satisfy his desire 
for possession. It corresponds with his love of out-door 
life, and his barbarian protest against confinement, and 
the interference with his physical freedom, and his joy 
in nature's great spaces and limitless achievements. 

The Sense of Rhythm. — Inasmuch as this character- 
istic has its roots in the material atom or molecule, and 
may be traced, without break, through all material 
forms and existences and beings, up to and including 
the pulsations of the human spirit, it seems very prob- 
able that almost no other instinct is more universal. 
Besides, it is basic in the highest activities. The most 
common use of the term, perhaps, is when applied to 
music, either by the voice or the instrument ; and, next, 
the rhythm of movement in the human body, as in 
dancing, gesture, walking, etc. 

Etymologically the word means " flow " or " cur- 
rent," and in time came to imply " uniform move- 
ment," hence " measured movement," involving pulses 
of recurrent stress ; in both speech and music, what is 
kno^\Ti as cadence; in vision, pleasing, restful propor- 
tions of light and shade, harmony of colors ; or in form, 
beauty of symmetry and gradation, as in the curve of 
the oval or circle ; in music and poetry, successions of 
times and accents ; in the plastic and graj)hic arts, a 
balance and proportion of parts with reference to each 



154 Science of Education 

other and to an artistic whole; in physiological organs, 
an alternation of functioning and physics, a succession 
of alternate and opposite or correlative states. The term 
may be taken, then, to connote not metre and cadence 
only, but the multitudinous periodicities of motion ; the 
alternations of function ; the flow and ebb of the mental 
life; and the pulses of progress and relative inactivity 
in the social organism. 

Evolution philosophy is saturated with the concep- 
tions of matter, force, and motion; the probably ulti- 
mate character of motion, and that all motion is rhyth- 
mical. And as illustrations of this last fact, the pages 
of modem sciem^e cite the undulatory movements in 
light, heat, and sound ; the oscillating or spiral path of 
falling bodies and projectiles ; the rise and fall of tides ; 
the billowing of the ocean ; magnetic variations, mi- 
nutely calculable; periodicities in the earth's changes; 
the swing of the pendulum; alternating currents in 
electricity; the laws and interferences of circular mo- 
tion, as in the steam-engine; the merging and trans- 
formation of currents of force as shown in periodic 
curves in graphics ; the bumping motion of a rolling 
ball; the oscillations of a moving railway train; the 
tremble of striking bodies, as the swaying of a building 
shaken by a storm ; the seismic earth motion accom- 
panying an earthquake; the regulated recurrence of 
light and darkness and of the seasons; sleep and wak- 
ing; the daily growth and repose of many flowers; 
periods of incubation, gestation, and animal breeding; 
the conditioned habits of hibernation and migration;^ 



The Motive in Education 155 

the well-established facts of periodicities in insanity, 
suicide, and crime; periods of rapid and slow growth 
and maturing in children ; and the probably rhythmical 
nature of nerve actions and states of consciousness. 

These are selected examples only of many that might 
be given to illustrate the applications and manifesta- 
tions of the rhythmical principle. Herbert Spencer,* 
in a concise summary — a single sentence — characterizes 
it as " a law manifested throughout all things from the 
inconceivably rapid oscillations of a unit of ether to 
the secular perturbations of the solar system ; in social 
phenomena, from the hourly rises and falls of the 
Stock Exchange prices to the actions and reactions of 
political parties." 

In the individual, as might be expected, this sense 
of rhythm and proportion is, in varying degrees and 
in different forms, clearly manifest. The response is 
sometimes conscious, sometimes not. But everyone is 
more or less subject to its influence. Along with the 
rhythmic motions of the molecules in the body, perhaps 
as a consequence of those motions, " the scale of time 
for each individual, each creature, is derived from a 
consciousness of the rhythm of its vital and locomotive 
functions." " All one's life is music," said Ruskin, 
" if one touches the notes rightly and in time." There 
is a daily rise and fall in strengtli, consequent on daily 
periodicities of repair and waste. Passions of all kinds 
appear in gushes or bursts. Attention is discontinuous 
and intermittent. Any one organ aroused to move- 
* "Principles of Sociology," ii, 606. 



156 Science of Education 

ment out of its wont gives zest to other movements. In 
walking there is what has been called locomotive 
rhythm, that requires and accompanies the co-ordinat- 
ing of many organs and the alternating of the lower 
limbs in movement. 

In music there are few exceptions to the recogni- 
tion and appreciation of the various and pleasing 
sounds, " sweet sounds, volmninous sounds, and combi- 
nations of sounds in harmony and melody " ; all of 
which appeals to this sense of rhythm and is inter- 
preted in terms of it. For a like reason in the rhyth- 
mic poem, the picturesque landscape, the kaleido- 
scopic sunset, the beautiful form, there is a pleased 
recognition of the inner proportion and the resulting 
harmony. To the same category Bain refers the beau- 
ties of order. " In a well-kept house or shop every- 
thing is in its place; there are fit tools and facilities 
for whatever is to be done; all the appearances are 
suggestive of such fitness and facility ; although it may 
happen that the reality and the appearance are opposed. 
The arts of cleanliness, in the first instance, are aimed 
at the removal of things injurious and loathsome; 
going a step farther, they impart whiteness of surface, 
lustre, brilliancy, which are aesthetic qualities.* There 
is in it all a sense of satisfying adjustment of things 
and their uses, not less than their appearance, to a 
higher law of fitness. 

Everyone can, does, express rhythm in some form. 
The sphere of one's appreciation of it is perhaps wider. 

♦Bain. "Mental Science," p. 299. 



The Motive in Education 157 

In both senses, however, tlie power seems to be uni-^ 
versal. There is a " unifying activity of feeling," and 
a similar tendency among ideas. More than this, 
human spirit reveals an impulse to utter itself, and so 
proportion expression to experience, which is only an- 
other form of rhythmic life. Michael Angelo, when 
asked the secret of his power to express so clearly and 
marvellously his ideas in marble, replied that " he 
thought and kept thinking on a thing until his hand 
kept time to his thought." The outer takes its mean- 
ing from the inner, not the inner from the outer; but 
the two are kept in tune. Each takes its rhythm from 
the other, and so has meaning in tenns of the other. 
The idea finds its reason for being in its fruition — 
the deed, the living, the service. " In the large and 
true sense in which we speak of the rhythm of the 
spheres or the rhythm in a picture, or a flower, even, 
says Miss H. Lindgren, " rhythm defines itself as the 
proportionate reinforcement of an idea." And in the 
cultivation of the native sense of proportion, or fitness, 
or order, or symmetry, one is helping on the impulse 
toward not the coarser only, but countless finer adjust- 
ments of expression and thought, conduct and ideal, 
art and reflection, feeling and understanding, self and 
society, right and expediency, good and the better. 

Every^vhere there is this dual relation, and both life 
and achievement oscillate between the two poles. Con- 
ception and behavior, not less than molecule and star, 
are rhythmic. The entire essay, " Compensation," by 
Emerson, is a commentary upon the meaning of the 



158 Science of Education 

principle. In the words of Emerson, " Every act re- 
wards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself in a 
twofold manner; first, in the thing or real nature; 
and, secondly, in the circumstances, or in apparent 
nature." 

Now every child, in one degree or another, is sus- 
ceptible of this generic impulse. And, except in music, 
and in a minor and technical way there, no account 
practically is taken of it in the schools. Yet in the 
most elementary tasks, and throughout the years, there 
are involved questions of economy of attention, the in- 
tegration and waste of experiences, periodicities of 
physical growth, the reactions of the physical and men- 
tal stages in the mental life, the ebb and flow of motive, 
the mutual reinforcements of idea and expression, rest 
and exercise, responsibility and easy self-regarding and 
law-abiding actions. 

This constitutional impulse, and the aptitude for 
following it up, are factors of an inner motive to which 
the teacher may safely resort in both example and pre- 
scription. Forms that are beautiful enough to be sim- 
ple and attractive, melodies that touch the springs 
of interest and s^anpathy, poetry that grows out of in- 
telligible, beautiful human exjDcriences, pictures that 
humanize and soften the motives to action, conduct 
that exalts duty to a joy — should, as far as may be, 
surround the child, that his instinctive sense of rhyth- 
mic doing and thinking may be satisfied and his daily 
living be keyed to his finer, not coarser, conceptions, 
to bis ideals, not his crude efforts only. Along 



The Motive in Education 159 

with number and the marvellous compensations of nat- 
ure, the teacher is justified in making much of song 
and story — songs that soothe and strengthen, and poetry 
that refines the understanding; stories that leave hope 
and interest, according to one's estimate of what is 
good and worth while; and a daily touch with speci- 
mens of what is really superior in graphics, and paint- 
ing, and sculpture, in song or speech or conduct; in 
heroism, or patience — in some unselfish endeavor. 

Underlying the interest in tliese is a form of the 
only true motive to which appeal may be made in teach- 
ing — the effort that has a real want behind it. 

The Faith Instinct. — The term is not meant to in- 
clude any theological meaning, and, incidentally only, 
has reference to the feeling of moral obligation, or sen- 
timent of duty, or love of virtue. These have for their 
object actions, conduct, one's own or another's, and 
have to do with actions that are held to be right or 
wrong. These are sentiments. The faith referred to 
is a native bias of the mind that marks a habit of 
credence. This is generic; that, specific. This has to 
do with not only conduct, but with things and their 
relations, with ideas and ideals, with institutions and 
abiding forces. It represents the mind's trust in its 
own experiences and in the environment out of which 
they originate. It names the mind's attitude of trust, 
an assured resting of the mind upon the integrity and 
valid fact and principle of what comes to it. It ex- 
plains intellectual risk and venture and the mind's 
hypothesis in explanation. Among the more important 



160 Science of Education 

manifestations of this faith instinct may be noted the 
following : 

Primarily there is faith in the functioning of the 
senses. Whatever the idealist may teach, there is a 
prevailing confidence that what one seems to see one 
does see;' that the eye does not deceive ns, that the nor- 
mal ear reports truly; that sensations of temperature 
and weight and distance, the sweet and the bitter, of 
beauty and pain and comfort, may be relied upon as 
valid for us who have the sensations. Upon these and 
like experiences we found our daily goings and com- 
ings. Things and our experience of them are com- 
mensurate elements in this confidence. The same char- 
acteristic of mind is shown in our relation to persons, 
" a sense of the mental and moral resemblance of all 
men." There is confidence in their like-mindedness 
with ourselves ; that co-operation and mutual influence 
are not only possible, but inevitable ; that though some 
men may sometimes deceive about some things, their 
words and their behavior may, upon the whole, be de- 
pended upon — that what they say they mean, and what 
they promise will be performed. Often, it is true, this 
confidence is betrayed, but that it was betrayed implies 
that there was confidence that was subject to betrayal. 

This would seem to be a primary fact in all social 
relations. All economic intercourse rests upon it ; the 
trustworthiness of all conventional life; the confidence 
in tradition and the accumulations of knowledge ; faith 
in authority and personal teachings. There is faith in 
the promises of science. The arts of comfort and 



The Motive in Education 161 

manufacture rest upon its dicta. Modes of lighting, 
heating, communication, transportation, mechanical 
execution, and the crude or artistic manipulation of 
materials, exhibit reliance upon the unfailing qualities 
of texture and fibre and chemical order. Indeed, it 
has come to be true that, whereas an ancient supersti- 
tion was the almost infallible wisdom of the priest, a 
corresponding modem superstition is an almost equally 
unquestioning faith in science and the scientist. All 
this implies a working confidence in the efficiency of 
knowledge; that abundant experience, and a store of 
ready-made explanations, and an understanding mind, 
are regenerative of the life. This is particularly true 
of childhood, and follows the years well along into 
adult life. It accompanies curiosity and every inquisi- 
tive and acquisitive tendency. It colors both relief 
and practice with reference to matters of learning, and 
in an extreme development tends to idealize scholar- 
ship. In its best estate it means a wholesome apprecia- 
tion of the knowing sense, an even and satisfying belief 
in the verities of what is known. 

In this same category, also, is implied faith in one's 
ideals. These are the mind's creations, for its oa\ti 
beholding and use, of more perfect conditions of knowl- 
edge and character and achievement than yet exist; 
" ideals that lie midway between the attainment of an 
end and the mere struggle toward it " ; ideals which 
are expressed in art and poetry, and which receive their 
highest embodiments in religious faith ; ideals of hu- 
man character, coveted human character, beyond even 



162 Science of Education 

human achievement — but ideals, nevertheless, for per- 
sonal measurement and personal effort at living and 
achieving. 

Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! 

His nature has two sides, which are in a state of in- 
ternecine war. On the one hand, there is the immedi- 
ate experience of what is present in sense, the false 
emphasis of particular facts, the besieging of Eje-gate 
and Ear-gate hj the phenomena of the outer world, 
together with the ever-pressing requirements of the 
animal life. On the other hand, there is the " still 
small voice " of the ideal which bids us have regard 
for the universal ; which tells of the True, the Beauti- 
ful, and the Good ; which urges the mind to " reject the 
eyes," and view things, rather, " under the fonn of 
eternity." Even in the hypotheses of science, there is 
a sense and a consciousness of something more abiding 
than what appears on the surface. It will be obvious, 
also, to the reader that in the course of experience this 
instinct will reveal a faith in the supremacy of spir- 
itual interests — " in the laws and customs which a 
community establishes, in the institutions of any sort 
which society frames, but most of all in the great litera- 
tures of the world," which, with man's acts and codes 
and creeds, are manl\:ind's attempt to give expression 
to his ideals of life and being. 

This confidence of the individual in his companion- 
ships with thing and personal fellow is the basis of his 



The Motive in Education 163 

teachableness. He learns in a measure, through his 
belief, that things may be learned, and coimsel may be 
trusted, and joy may be shared ; that what the race has 
known and believed may content him also; that the 
universe whose nature he shares is dealing fairly with 
him. This, therefore, along with the other instincts 
named, constitutes a motive to which legitimate appeal 
may be made by the teacher. Indeed, in the words 
heading this section, the constitutional impulse to know 
and to grow is the only motive in education. Punish- 
ment — physical or mental — privation, prohibitions, ex- 
ternally imposed rules of behavior, artificial incentives 
and rewards, a prescribed fixed order — may all be 
necessary upon occasions and for the accomplishment 
of certain results; but they can be considered, at best, 
an accidental and contingent stimulus only, not a true 
motive. The wise teacher will seek to arouse the child's 
own initiative through an approach to one or another 
of his constitutional biases. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CONDITION IN EDUCATION 

4. Finally, among the fundamentals in the concep- 
tion of education here presented, there are presupposed 
time and the accompanying opportunities for develop- 
ment, as the only condition of education. " Mind dawns, 
grows, mellows, and decays," says Drummond. " This 
growing is gradual; an infinitely gentle, never abrupt, 
unfolding — the kind of growing which, in every other 
department of nature, we are taught to associate with 
evolution." Its maturing, under whatever tutelage, is 
a process, now slow, now more rapid, a progressive de- 
velopment, whose steps severally, by stages, and in 
the aggregate, require time. It repudiates hot-house 
methods — over-feeding and over-stunulation, not less 
than starving and neglect. The best education is a com- 
paratively slow process. The poem, " Gradatim," by 
tlie late J. G. Holland, gives an excellent rendering of 
the thought: 

Heaven is not reached at a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 

And we mount to its summit round by round. 
164 



The Condition in Education 165 

We rise by the things that are under our feet, 
By what we have mastered of good or gain; 
By the pride deposed and tlie passion slain, 

And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. 

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust 
When the morning calls us to life and light; 
But our hearts grow weary and, ere the night, 

Our lives are trailing the sordid dust. 

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown 

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; 
But the dreams depart and the vision falls, 

And the sleeper awakes on his pillow of stone. 

Heaven is not reached by a single bound. 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 

And we mount to its summit round by round. 

" Growth involves conflict, for our natural develop- 
ment brings out all sorts of impulses that need shaping 
to fit them to their place in the world." * It means the 
taking on of the suitable food habit, knowing one's body 
and how to treat it; it means the learning of the things 
of one's environment, there as well as here, and adjust- 
ing one's self to their possibilities for us; it means con- 
forming to rules of behavior and a conventional order 
that are largely arbitrary, and, to the child mind, 
vastly complicated; it means the development and trim- 
ming and training of a group of more or less trouble- 
some, but necessary, and often joy-giving feelings and 
emotions — particularly the forms of the sympathetic 

♦Oppenheim. "Mental Growth and Control," p. 3. 



166 Science of Education 

feelings, joy, grief, anger, fear, s;yanpathy, pity, con- 
sistency, and jileasure in the beautiful, etc. And this 
is true, whether the consideration be of the undirected 
education that comes of the free intercourse with things 
or persons, or from the purposed activities of the school 
and the home. In such life-unfolding, time is an es- 
sential element. 

Speaking technically, the sjiontaneous and uncer- 
tain perception of the child must be transformed into 
the intelligent and trained and critical perceptions of 
the man; the spontaneous and more or less mechani- 
cal memory of youth into the rational memory of 
adult and philosophic years; knowledge of content 
enriched by knowledge of extent; the long road gone 
over from percept, image, and reproduction, to con- 
cept and constructive imagination; from simple isolated 
experiences, to cumulative assimilation and appercep- 
tion; from one's individual insular self, to his larger 
institutional and ideal self; from the narrow interest in 
what pleases, to the broader interest in the indifferent, 
but world important. The " mother thoughts " once 
planted, require time for their maturing. Mind has its 
seasons, not less than the years. Little is gained by 
urging a child beyond its normal " gait." Much is lost 
by delay in beginning, or neglect in stimulation. In 
recitation, the teacher should remember that it is more 
important that pupils should be aroused to mental effort, 
and a wish to do, and to do at their best, than that they 
should be brought to conform to any sort of prompt and 
frictionless and picturesque school machinery. The 



The Condition in Education 167 

recitation should serve the child's need; not the child, 
the whim of any martinet procedure of a hearer of 
recitations. 

This conception repudiates also all artificial pre- 
scriptions and impositions, whether of courses or 
methods; and emphasizes the importance of regarding 
the mind's spontaneous and self-approved and original 
interests; and the necessity of converging within the 
field of its sense-approaches a stock of appropriate sense 
materials and incitements. Given a meaningful world, 
and, in it and a part of it, a rational creature having 
affinities with it, and education follows, if time only be 
granted; this is the one condition. 

If education meant the accumulation of knowledge, 
merely, or chiefly, the importance of time as a factor 
might be reduced to an unimportant minimum by im- 
proved methods. But the mental eifect of right edu- 
cational processes is in the nature less of acquisition 
than of ripening, maturing and mellowing; or, not in- 
frequently, even tempering and seasoning; and, more 
often, habituation and accustoming; or assimilating and 
adapting; all of which connote qualitative rather than 
quantitative changes. For such effects, time is requi- 
site. Indeed, from the side of the child's need, the 
policy should be " to (wisely) lose time " ; to pro\ade for 
a healthy, abundant growth, accompanied by all needed 
information and the tools of learning, rather than a 
store of information, indifferent to the maturing prog- 
ress. In most businesses, it will be conceded, maturity 
and good judgment, and the ability and disposition to 



168 Science of Education 

assume and honor the incident responsibilities, count 
for more, both in the estimation of the firm, or of one's 
patrons, and for one's general promotion, than do much 
knowledge and a store of skill. The craze for shorten- 
ing courses takes its rise, primarily, in a supposed ex- 
pediency; the assumed needs of business, and the claims 
of society upon the individual, hurrying him through 
his school preparations. Often it is no better than 
temporizing with life's promises, and taking a minor 
good for a larger, because that offers immediate returns. 
For this reason, all too often, a brief course of train- 
ing is substituted for an education that would require 
some years ; and it is hoped that success may be won with 
skill divorced from intelligence. Information is wanted, 
and information of just the kind that soonest opens the 
way to some business. All hurry in education, most 
" short cuts " to an occupation, and much secondary 
training that is narrowly technical, are a concession to 
the information idea. On the contrary, if interest 
centre in the man behind the workman; in successful- 
ness rather than knack; in civic efficiency as an indis- 
pensable supplement to any degree of industrial effi- 
ciency; then years, and the conditions for a cultivated 
maturing, will be granted a larger recognition than 
now too often happens. Time is an essential factor in 
all growth ; and all the more important as the process is 
conceived to be one of real education, and not mere 
expertness of particular achievement. In terms of 
scholarship, education becomes such process as makes 
the acquisition and masterful possession of all needful 



The Condition in Education 169 

learning sure ; from the point of view of society, it seeks 
to adjust the individual to an intelligent participation 
in the established codes; as concerns the trades, it ac- 
companies the best available culture with needed skill — 
gives efficiency of culture; in terms of morality, it is 
such process as makes for worthy ends; in terms of the 
state, it implies civic equipments and growth in per- 
sonality. 

From such views, descriptive and critical, of the 
nature and bearing of this process, may be derived the 
following (provisional) definitions of education. 

1. Education is the life process by which the indi- 
vidual is matured. It has a legitimate correlative in 
civilization, which names the process by which society 
at large, or the race, has been matured. This connotes 
" growth based upon exercise with appropriate material ; 
the exercise being given for the purpose of the growth, 
and only secondarily for the sake of the material." 

2. Education as a science is the body of organized 
laws or principles, in accordance with which this process 
takes place. Both the processes as characterized in (1) 
and the science as defined in (2) are comprehensive of 
both school and non-school movements. The view is 
generic and compasses all maturing, whether directed 
or contingent; purposed and controlled, or evolutional. 

3. Education as an art is the intelligent direction of 
this process. This, again, it will be apparent, is wider 
than the school, and includes all purposed guidance that 
is symmetrically and intelligently conducted. Practi- 



170 Science of Education 

call J the use of the art in this exact sense is confined to 
the school as an institution. 

4, The science of teaching is the body of laws or 
principles in accordance with which the intelligent di- 
rection of the process is carried on. 

The logical order of these professional knowledges 
obviously would be: (1) the nature of the educational 
process; (2) the science of education; (3) the science of 
teaching ; and, finally (4), the art of teaching. It is not 
supposed that the lines of demarcation between any two 
of these, as to sequence, would be sharply fixed ; but, in 
general, the meaning of any one of them must be found 
in what precedes. Theoretically, certain of the Normal 
Schools follow this order. The empirical order would 
be practically the reverse of this, and for an elementary 
view is preferable, perhaps. But it must be considered 
that no teaching is rational that is not explainable in 
terms of some more general assumption or established 
principles. The teacher-student may profitably follow 
the chronological or empirical order ; the teacher at his 
work should approach his task with more or less of the 
logical insight. The former is likely to be narrow, but, 
in ways, efficient; the latter, liberal, but critical. The 
former is likely to emphasize devices and temporary re- 
sults; the latter, something of a fixed order and pre- 
scription. JSTevertheless, other conditions being equal, 
the enrichment of the daily practice by a clear insight 
into the essential conditions of the general process, dig- 
nifies the service of the school, and by virtue of this very 
emphasis of the abidingly good and the universal. 



EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE 



CHAPTER Xin 
THE NATURE OF SCIENCE 

One's conception of education as a science is condi- 
tioned hj bis conception of the nature of science. 

It is frequently asserted that common knowledge 
made more precise, more extensive and more systematic 
is what is meant by science, Mr. Huxley, than whom 
no modern teacher has been more facile in the use 
of the scientific method, wrote * many years ago : " Sci- 
ence is trained and organized common-sense — differing 
from the latter only as the veteran may differ from 
the raw recruit; and its methods differ from those of 
common-sense only so far as the guardsman's cut and 
thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields 
his club. . . . The sword exercise is only the hew- 
ing and poking of the clubman, developed and per- 
fected." With much the same meaning, Mr. Lewes 
says : f " Science is the systematization of our experi- 
ences; it is common-sense methodized and generalized." 

It is interesting to note how uniformly all authori- 
ties agree in identifying the beginnings of science with 
the common, thoughtful experience. The raw material 

* T. H. Huxley. "Laj^ Sermons and Addresses," p. 77. 

f George H. Lewes. '^ The Study of Psychology," p. 49. 

173 



174 Science of Education 

of the one is tlie product of the common-sense of man- 
kind. Many of the conclusions of the untrained ob- 
server went astray, and still go astray; but many of 
them, also, came to honor and general confidence. The 
knowledge, the sure, often predictive knowledge, which 
the farmer, or the ranchman, or the sailor has of the 
weather; or the merchant, of times and seasons and 
popular whims; or the housewife, of the quality of 
stuffs and their values; or the forester, of lumber prod- 
ucts in the tree; or the miner, of hidden ores; is just 
the knowledge that has made possible the sciences of 
meteorology, trade economics, wood mechanics and min- 
ing. Similar relations may be affirmed of lay and pro- 
fessional insights into law, and medical treatment, and 
government, and public policies, and ethical conduct, 
and the fine arts. The judgments of the artisan and 
the citizen are often fairly reliable. The same obser- 
vation would apply equally to the lay estimate concern- 
ing schools and schooling and the educational product. 
The scientific dictum in each case is the more reliable, 
chiefly because it rests upon observations that are more 
accurate and more comprehensive; in part, more accu- 
rate because more comprehensive. 

Primarily, scientific knowledge assumes to have cov- 
ered every important detail of the set of phenomena to 
be observed. In this respect, common knowledge is 
vague and partial; vague often for the reason that it is 
partial: sometimes neglecting, or ignorantly reject- 
ing phenomena which the more careful observer has 
found to be important. In part, the carefulness of the 



The Nature of Science 175 

observation consists in the fact that no details are per- 
mitted to be disregarded, lest some or all of them may 
be important. Real causes, or the determining factors 
of phenomena may not, generally do not, lie upon the 
surface. They may escape notice. The resulting 
knowledge is not only unreliable; it is vague. Action 
based upon it is uncertain. It leads to more or less 
random supposition and mere guessing, the groping of 
fancy — not the intelligent working upon deliberate 
hypothesis. Such knowledge is vague, in the sense of 
being obscure, its meaning ambiguous, and its authority 
wavering. Scientific knowledge, comprising facts that 
have really been verified in experience, speaks with no 
uncertain sound. Conclusions may be wrong, but they 
are clear. 

In addition to being general and dim, common 
knowledge is also indefinite, as compared with scien- 
tific knowledge, which is accurate and exact. The 
conclusions of the latter may be acted upon with as- 
surance. Forces and changes are measured and 
valued. Conditions are counted and compared. Uni- 
form scales are employed, and instruments and stand- 
ards. Science thus becomes accurate and predictive. 
Common observation discovers variations in tempera- 
ture, and in the quality of soils, and forms of water, 
and movements of the air ; and that food for beast 
and man differ in nutritive qualities ; and that trees 
have a flow of their juices in the spring, etc. ; but 
science is able to answer for each one, the how or the 
why, or both, and with such precision as to give assur- 



176 Science of Education 

ances of practical as well as theoretical trustworthiness. 
Thermometers, and soil laboratories, and hygrometers, 
and dietetic analysis, and microscopes, make exact con- 
clusions and tests among these changes possible. To be 
scientific, knowledge must be exact as well as compre- 
hensive. As an accompaniment, and an absolutely 
necessary accompaniment of a science there is a corre- 
sponding body of technical terms. Each important fact 
is named, together with its implications and relations. 
Says Everett,* " It [science] must have a name for 
everything — some fixed, hard word, that shall stand 
for this one thing and for nothing else. . . . This 
terminology is an essential element of science. It is 
the record of its analyses and its discoveries." The no- 
menclature is a monumental sign of its painstaking accu- 
racy. So much discrimination, so much naming; with- 
out this, the discrimination would vanish; without that, 
the terminology would be meaningless. Science is in- 
dividual and direct, eschewing mere description and 
indiscriminate sketches. It looks to precision of facts, 
and an adequate characterization. The unsatisfactory 
character of much current educational theory is fore- 
shadowed in the conflicting and shadowy meanings of 
many of the terms used. 

Once more, science concerns itself with the truth 
about matters, not with one's impression about them. 
It is impersonal. As far as it is a true science it rep- 
resents what and how and why things are as they are, 
indifferent to whether the what and the how and the 
* C. C. Everett. " The Science of Thought," p. 304. 



The Nature of Science 177 

why are as tliey were supposed to be or not. It con- 
templates the elimination of human prejudice and per- 
sonal preferences, and hindering convictions, and inapt 
hypotheses, as endangering either the faithful observa- 
tion or the reasonable interpretation, or both. In its 
acquisitions and its organization, science is indifferent to 
sentiment and personal wishes. Its material is truth, and 
only truth, however it may afterward be vised or distorted. 
In no other field is the observer so likely to in- 
ject into his studies his prejudgments as among liv- 
ing forms ; and most of all on the higher levels. Else- 
where in this volume it has been shown that man's 
study and interpretation of animal traits are in danger 
of perversion, both from conceding to them now too 
much and again too little of the human faculty. 
Knowledge to be scientific must hold itself above human 
(personal) prejudices. This applies, as will be elab- 
orated elsewhere, to the adult's estimate of the child; 
to civilization's estimate of primitive races; to the 
mutual misjudgments of culture and skill; to church 
and pew; to capital and labor; to the artisan and artist; 
to urban and rustic; to Occident and Orient; to Cau- 
casian and negro, as to man and monkey, or man and 
cabbage, or clod, or cloud. He who has learned how 
to see, and to report with fidelity what he sees, neither 
more nor less, has taken a long step toward an easy in- 
terpretation of the product of his seeing. Expectation, 
and hypothesis, and tradition, and previous teaching 
will furnish wholesome incentive, and give direction to 
one's inquiries; but must not control them. Science 



178 Science of Education 

must be held superior to personal bias, and honor truth 
for its own sake. 

Science has been represented as employing two 
methods of grouping and labelling phenomena, or the 
facts of knowledge: first, definition; and, second, clas- 
sification. By the first we have mutually exclusive 
classes; by the second, groups inclusive of essential qual- 
ities. In the physical sciences, including mathematical, 
molecular, structural and etheral physics, because of 
the less complex phenomena, the former is particularly 
applicable. In the so-called Natural History sciences 
the latter prevails. Of this type-grouping. Dr. Whewell 
affirms:* "The class is steadily fixed, though not pre- 
cisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; 
it is determined, not by a boundary line without, but by 
a central point within; not by what it strictly excludes, 
but by what it eminently includes; by an example, and 
not by a precept ; in short, instead of Definition, we have 
a Type for our director. A type is an example of any 
class, a species of a genus, which is considered as emi- 
nently possessing the characters of the class." 

Now, Professor Huxley f protests that no such dis- 
tinction exists ; that the method of all the sciences is the 
same ; and that perfected results are equally exact. He 
asserts that as compared with the mathematical and phys- 
ical sciences, the biological sciences are no less compara- 
tive ; that they, also, use experiment as well as observa- 
tion; and that they, too, employ definition. Neverthe- 

* Whewell. " History of the Inductive Sciences," i, p. 476. 
f Huxley. "Science and Education," pp. 47-53. 



The Nature of Science 179 

less, Professor Huxley admits that " the biologist deals 
with a vast number of properties of objects, and his in- 
ductions will not be completed, I fear, for ages to come ; 
but when they are, his science will be as deductive and as 
exact as the mathematics themselves." Elsewhere, also, 
in the same essay, he says: " So long as our information 
concerning them is imperfect, we class all objects to- 
gether, according to resemblances which we feel, but 
cannot define; we group them around types, in short." 
Of course, this is saying, in substance, for the present 
state of biology, what Dr. Whewell claims, that classi- 
fication of its material is, and must be " for ages to 
come," by type, in many cases; by definition, in the few 
instances, where knowledge is complete. 

In general, to define means to fix the boundary of 
that which is defined, its margin of contact with, and 
distinction from, something else. In this sense the term 
implies traceable limits, and precision of discrimination. 
But it also carries the meaning of " to explain " or " to 
describe." Locke speaks of the act of " defining," 
so used, as " being nothing but making another under- 
stand by words what the term defined stands for." The 
difference between " inclusive type " and '' limited 
class " is then primarily one of exactness of determina- 
tion and statement. Perfection of knowledge and faith- 
fulness of record are aimed at in both cases. The phe- 
nomena of heat, light, motion, electricity, magnetism, 
chemism, gravitation, air, water, etc., may be, many of 
them have been, measured, and their important rela- 
tions tabulated, They readily lend themselves to defi- 



180 Science of Education 

nition, and exact limiting* statements. On the other 
hand, many of the phenomena of organic matter — plant 
and animal life; of anthropology, including race divis- 
ions, organic functions, language, etc.; of psychology, 
and the forms of logic and art; and of sociology, com- 
prising what is currently classed as history, economics, 
politics, ethics, and conventional codes — may be organ- 
ized under representative types only, almost not at all 
by definition and mutually exclusive classes. Plants 
and animals share many traits in common; race charac- 
teristics are not always distinctly marked; languages 
are perplexingly blended; neither mental functions nor 
activities are anywhere sharply defined; and the forms 
and criteria of the beautiful, the standards of conduct 
and social intercourse, the forces that make for civiliza- 
tion; and the genesis and functions of the various in- 
stitutions; yield, along with manifold other phenom- 
ena, to classification by inclusive types only. 

It is not contended that the resulting systems are 
less trustworthy in these than in those or that the 
methods are any less fruitful; but, dealing with mate- 
rial so unlike, they are different. This distinction will 
be seen to be significant as the discussion proceeds. Pro- 
fessor Huxley,* once more, attempting to fix the rela- 
tion of biology to other sciences, takes satisfaction in 
thinking that " as the student, in reaching biology, 
looks back upon sciences of a less complex, and, there- 
fore, more perfect nature, so, on the other hand, does 
he look forward to other more complex and less per- 
* Huxley. " Science and Education," p. 58. 



The Nature of Science 181 

feet branches of knowledge. Biology deals only with 
living beings as isolated things; treats only of the life 
of the individual: but there is a higher division of sci- 
ence still, which considers living beings as aggregates — 
which deals with the relations of living beings to one 
another, the science which observes men — whose ex- 
periments are made by nations upon one another, in 
battle fields; whose general propositions are embodied 
in history, morality, and religion; whose deductions 
lead to our happiness or our misery, and whose verifica- 
tions so often come too late." 

Because of its subject-matter, this group of sciences, 
the sociological, is of particular interest to the teacher, 
though the method of approach to their phenomena must 
be much the same as for others. The aim in all of them 
is to reach accurate knowledge — comparative, verified, 
usable knowledge ; knowledge that shall, at once, serve 
as guidance and as power; knowledge that shall be pre- 
dictive of wise personal and social treatment, in educa- 
tion, punishment, reform, industry, government, legis- 
lation, and social codes. 

Science uses, also, logical division, not mere cata- 
loguing. The ordering of the facts is important. Of 
course they must be gathered and enumerated. It is 
important that every fact be known. In a very real 
sense any one is as much a legitimate object of inquiry 
to the scientist as any other. In their implications and 
uses, however, some will be found more significant than 
others. For this reason a bare inventory, however com- 
plete, cannot satisfy. Science is a body of organized 



182 Science of Education 

knowledge. The parts must be logically related. Given 
the facts, this is what makes the aggregate to be sci- 
ence, and not information. The order of the arrange- 
ment is determined by the relations of the phenomena 
themselves, and cannot be imposed by the mind. The 
relations are there; they are simply observed; not cre- 
ated by the thinking, or manufactured. In the nature 
of things, they fix their own order, which man, more 
or less successfully, seeks to discover and interpret. 

This reflection, also, is full of meaning to the teacher 
who would know the material with which she works, 
and know how to respect its inner moments of progress. 
Facts, however carefully collected, are worth little 
until they have been resolved into their ordered con- 
nections, groups and classes; parts and factors, more or 
less important; local and general meanings. Science 
implies logical arrangement, not cataloguing. 

Once more, fixed and general laws are fundamental 
assumptions in science. There is present to the mind 
a consciousness that there are uniformities in phenom- 
ena, and accompanying conditions, in terms of which 
their happenings may be explained; whether the phe- 
nomena be of things or thought, of objects or people, 
of institutions or ideas. The existence and character 
of science imply a conviction that what is observed or 
discovered may be accounted for. The coloring and 
falling of the leaves in the autumn, the covering of 
animals, race distinctions in the human species, the ex- 
istence of religious sects, diversities of customs, the char- 
acter of industries, the reading habit, child character — 



The Nature of Science 183 

to tlie degree that tbej interest man in their fitness, 
their changes, or their behavior, rest upon an assurance 
that they have a reason for their being. The field of ex- 
istence and occurrence, about the teacher, the preacher, 
the physician, the lawyer, the law-maker, the mother as 
a mother, the dealer, or the manufacturer, is neither less 
fruitful nor less interesting than that which surrounds 
the botanist, the zoologist, the physicist, the electrician, 
the astronomer, or the geologist. Each offers abundant 
opportunity for scientific inquiry. Each makes its ap- 
peal in the same way to faith in the thoroughly expli- 
cable character of things, because of faith in the exist- 
ence of fixed and general laws underlying the things. 

Einally, in the consideration of the character of sci- 
ence, it may, with reasonable accuracy, be said that its 
test is its prevision of results. Very naturally this is 
more generally true of some sciences than of others, 
and of certain sets of phenomena within each science — 
most of all in the mathematics, and the mathematical 
sciences. There is practical certainty in mechanics and 
engineering, in chemical reactions, meteorology, soil 
and soil culture, animal breeding and habits, and many 
matters concerning human individual and social behav- 
ior, also. 

It is not meant that in any considerable number 
of the non-mathematical sciences one shall be able 
to tell exactly wdiat will result ; but that certain con- 
ditions and factors will have such and such influence ; 
and, given, with these conditions, certain influences, the 
kind of effect may be kno^vn. As the phenomena be- 



184 Science of Education 

come such as to make the introduction of unexpected 
influences likely, the result becomes so much the more 
problematical; as unforeseen weather conditions jeop- 
ardize the crops, or a panic of fright may disorganize 
an otherwise dignified assembly, or an unfamiliar in- 
dividual will may set prejudgment at naught. It may 
be said, however, that the more perfectly organized the 
knowledge, the more accurate and reliable are the pos- 
sible predictions. 

In the region of human action, this prevision becomes 
relatively less frequent, and less trustworthy, in detail; 
but, in the aggregate, surprisingly reliable. We act upon 
our knowledge, in the handling of great crowds, legislat- 
ing for the slums, educating the young, encouraging in- 
vention, building highways of commerce, the investment 
of wealth, and going to war. We are sometimes mis- 
taken ; but it is fair to supix)se that if our knowledge were 
complete as to all of the really or practically uniform 
happenings, the occasional or frequent presence of an ar- 
bitrary or unexpected factor would be found far less dis- 
turbing than it now seems. Human faculty, also, is 
quite uniform in its behavior; and particularly child 
faculty, as it appears in the school and at home, at task 
and at play. As concerns prevision, science is no less 
instructive for the teacher than for its other qualities. 

It is conceded at once that as the phenomena of life 
are more complex than most of the phenomena of the 
physical sciences, so the facts of human life are even 
more complex. Account must be taken of the individ- 
ual will and individual organic biases; of shifting social 
standards and conventions; of congregate relations as 



The Nature of Science 185 

something different from the personal relations; of man- 
ifold and seemingly inextricably tangled and mutually 
interacting social groups; of institutions whose begin- 
nings and reasons are lost in history; conflicting and 
struggling economic, and industrial, and civic and ethi- 
cal policies; and the presence in the midst of them all 
of the leader with his following — the priest with his 
flock, the politician with his party, the philosopher with 
his school, the reformer with his adherents, the master 
with his disciples. 

And of all these the pedagogical phenomena are not 
the least complex. They concern mind, not matter ; ideas 
and ideals, not material products only; phenomena that 
are strikingly dynamic, not static. 

Because these phenomena are more or less abstract 
and intricately interdependent, the effort to resolve 
them into a system properly co-ordinating and sub- 
ordinating the several notions will be correspondingly 
difficult. Already there is held by both the lay and the 
professional mind, and imbedded in extant philosophies, 
a considerable fund of pedagogical knowledge; it 
awaits organization. The science is in its descriptive 
stage. Much of what is known lacks definiteness. 
There is more or less confusion over terms, because 
there is confusion over the ideas for which the terms 
are supposed to stand. To become scientific the facts 
must receive more accurate definition, and verified defi- 
nition. Pedagogy obviously belongs to that " higher 
division of science which considers living beings as ag- 
gregates," and the " verification of whose deductions so 
often come too late." 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

In addition to an acquaintance with the nature of 
science, its methods, also, must not only be under- 
stood, but employed in the interpretation or construc- 
tion of a Science of Education, not less than to ration- 
alize the teaching. And this method is both simple 
and easily stated. Practically all agree as to the essen- 
tial requirements. Professor Huxley has been quoted as 
saying that " science is only trained common-sense." 
It differs, as we all know, quite enough from common 
thought — but not in its matter. " Scientific thought," 
affirms Kingdon Clifford, " does not mean thought 
about scientific subjects. There are no scientific sub- 
jects." It is the method of the mind's movement that 
determines the thinking to be scientific, merely tech- 
nical, or irrational. It is not confined to the material 
world ; though this is a common distortion of the mean- 
ing of the term. The subject-matter of science com- 
prises whatever " is, or has been, or may be related 
to man." Scientific thought is no more the province of 
the physicist than of the philanthropist ; it no more be- 
longs to botany than to ethics; to diatoms, than to the 
Decalogue. 

186 



The Scientific Method 187 

Primarily, the scientific method requires careful, ac- 
curate, painstaking observation. All first steps in learn- 
ing are descriptive, and give one acquaintance with 
individuals and large particulars. Because of omitting 
many details, knowledge is vague and disconnected 
often. The movement is toward the gathering of in- 
formation. Experiences of this sort accumulate. Many 
of them will, in time, be discarded; some few will re- 
main. This is a crude prophecy of the beginnings of the 
later, regulated, provident, scientific method. All scien- 
tific thought, about whatever phenomena, implies a 
deep rooting in a rich soil of particulars. This means 
purposeful observation, using all the senses; reinforc- 
ing their exercise by bringing to bear upon it all of 
the observer's related experience; noting the conditions 
that accompany, and seeing and thinking the parts and 
happenings in their relations. The act involves an ele- 
ment of honesty — honesty to one's self — that one shall 
not claim to find what is not there to be found, or what 
has not been found ; and that one shall direct his efforts 
to finding all that is to be found, not content to accept 
partial knowledge, and claim completeness. In one's 
inquiry it may be necessary to prolong the observation 
until it takes on the character of an investigation, in 
which the observation is carried on under varying con- 
ditions, and through important changes, and the lapse 
of time. The act is still essentially one of observation, 
and the object is the gathering of reliable facts of ex- 
perience about the thing studied. These are, in time, 
to be used as the raw material for induction; for the 



188 Science of Education 

moment they are gatliered as if the value were in them- 
selves. 

Occasionally the investigation takes on the form of 
experiment. It has been said that when the purpose 
is to discover what is the cause of a given effect, the 
inquiry takes on the character of observation or inves- 
tigation; but that when one asks, from a given cause, 
what are likely to be the effects, the search becomes an 
experiment. In direct or simple observation, one ac- 
quires the static or descriptive view; in the more pro- 
longed investigation, in Avhich there is a tracing of 
movements and a following of causes to their effects, 
and chains of sequences, there is given the generic, 
dynamic or historical view. In the experiment, which 
involves a combination of thing and circumstance, and 
these varied at will, there is obtained the critical view. 
Rarely, in any set of phenomena, does any one of these 
occur independently. Every experiment includes both 
of the others; as every, even the simplest, observation 
involves something of investigation. The most com- 
plete and elaborate experiment is only refined investi- 
gation; as investigation is crude experiment. The end 
sought is accurate knowledge of facts and conditions; 
and, in all the earlier stages, the condition imposed is 
that the facts shall be of one's own getting. There must 
be direct personal relations with the fact. In the begin- 
ning, at least, scientific knowledge cannot be had at 
second-hand ; and, for anyone, the method is scientific 
only when one employs himself in the gathering of 
facts. And, while a record of the fact may be found 



The Scientific Method 189 

upon the shelf of another, it loses much of its effective- 
ness as a fact, and almost all of its effect upon the 
learner, by being taken from authority. 

It remains to be noted of this first step in the scientific 
method, that the reliability of the observations is gi'eatly 
enhanced by much repetition. By such means, the 
chances of error either in the seeing or the recording, or 
both, will be much reduced. But as, in many successive 
observations of one set of phenomena, the conditions are 
likely to vary in a greater or less degree, there is sug- 
gested the next stage in the method, that of comparison 
of phenomena and registry of observations. This only 
means prolonged and multiplied investigations under 
all possible imjx)rtant conditions ; tracing movements ; 
following up causes to effects ; tracing back effects to 
causes ; and all this, whether the phenomena be the cur- 
culio, hereditary traits among animals or men, the 
growth of institutions, or the maturing, and habits, and 
instincts of a child. Along with this obsei'vation of like 
phenomena under varying conditions, and unlike phe- 
nomena under the same conditions, there goes this com- 
parison of accompanying classifications and inductions. 
Indeed, for so little does the individual fact count in the 
final analysis, that these two, " comparison and the clas- 
sification, which is the result of comparison, are the es- 
sence of every science." Out of these, groups and 
classes are derived, for the mind's use, typical indi- 
viduals which constitute the real working material of 
most sciences and especially of the biological and social. 

That is, for example, science has to do, not with the 



190 Science of Education 

individual mammal, but with the group mammalia ; not 
with this or that man, but with the species, or with 
the community, the class, the party, the organization; 
and with individuals as they stand related to these; not 
with a given text, or branch, or solution, but with rep- 
resentative ones. A knowledge of the type and ability 
to recognize and interpret the type, is a primary requi- 
site in all such investigations. The classification that 
accompanies or follows the studied comparisons noted 
is already of such character as to imply a tentative in- 
ference. Conditions being given, the phenomena are 
noted; direction being given to the observation by the 
accompanying hypothesis or supposition. This assigns 
a probable cause, or a reasonable connection between 
the conditions noted and the phenomena. If it be found 
to explain many or most of the phenomena in the group 
studied, and to contradict none, the hypothesis fur- 
nishes a working basis at least for the induction. In- 
deed, the existence of such interpreting supposition im- 
plies that evidence has been accumulating — possibly 
from the beginning of the observation, and that the 
meanings of the facts are taking shape in the mind. 

What has been described here as successive steps are 
not always, or, perhaps, generally, taken in this serial 
order. Each more or less overlaps the adjacent steps; 
and the tendency of the mind is to hasten on to tentative 
comparisons, and provisional hypothesis, and nascent 
inferences, even before the investigations are adequate 
to make the induction valid. This tendency of the mind 
in such reasoning to leap over intermediate steps is the 



The Scientific Method 191 

source of incalculable error. Careful, painstaking ob- 
servations, and all-round critical investigations and 
comparisons will conduce to make the consequent in- 
duction not only easy, but ready. If well prepared 
for, the act of inference is a form of insight only. The 
meaning of the facts is borne in upon one, and does 
not have to be derived; it is given. The difficult part 
of the entire process lies in the gathering of facts, find- 
ing their value, working them into a solution, and trac- 
ing the common elements, upon the heels of which the 
induction appears. The formation of a meaning for 
the group, from the findings among the individuals of 
the group, is an act of induction whose statement in 
words is our expression of the law, or general proposi- 
tion. The error of most science, and of common, un- 
trained thinking, is hasty, ill-considered induction. And 
this is not more true of earth phenomena than of man; 
of matter than of mind; of the naturalization of the 
English sparrow than of the English immigrant. 

Inferences themselves, once more, are valid only as 
they are verified. As our English scientist puts it: 
" Justification is by verification — not by faith." Fol- 
lowing the more or less careful observations and the re- 
peated questioning of phenomena as to their meanings, 
and accompanied by the inevitable suppositions of the 
observer as to what is true, the experiment or investi- 
gation itself becomes the test, or means of verification. 
" Induction," says Bascom, " is nothing without a 
theory, or conception of some kind, running side by 
side with its classifications, guiding and interpreting 



192 Science of Education 

them, and ready deductively to furnish shining strokes 
of exposition." In practice, verification means using 
inferences in subsequent experience — bringing them to 
the test of application. So that, except in the most 
formal and technical investigation and experiment, for 
the sake of the conclusions, the verification goes on 
alongside of all the earlier steps of the process. One's 
former experience will contribute something of insight 
and an ability and disposition of mind to give meaning 
to the observed facts; observation, also, is interpre- 
tative to a degree, i.e., selective of probable meanings; 
while experiment is, in its very nature, an act of the 
mind, throwing the facts into chosen, convenient ar- 
rangement for one's observation. This bias of mind to 
accept certain meanings for the facts rather than others, 
becomes, if reinforced by the understanding, the work- 
ing hypothesis. The danger from error in all this lies 
in the fact that one may permit the predisposition of 
the former experience to override the other factors, 
observation, investigation, and experiment, even to the 
rejection of the truth in favor of one's preferences. 

Nowhere is this peril greater than among phenomena 
involving human relations. Men are, strangely enough, 
ready to venture an assurance of knowledge about man- 
kind, and education, and moral codes, and civic rights, 
and business ethics, and trade economics, and statutes 
and constitutions, and creeds, as they do not think of 
doing about electric currents, or molecules, or building- 
concrete, or tunneling, or the X-rays, or the resolving 
of chemical compounds. And this is particularly true 



The Scientific Method 193 

when the human problems involve police administra- 
tion^ or reforms, or plans for public betterment, the 
treatment of the wayward, management of the slums, or 
the care of neglected classes. Yet these will repay a 
study at close range; and might profitably be studied 
as one studies the evolution of life, the genesis of cus- 
toms, or the aggressions of industrialism. 

These are all social problems, and can be studied to 
advantage only as other social problems are studied, i.e., 
historically. In pedagogy, which is one of the social sci- 
ences, the only trustworthy method is that which has 
been called above the historical or genetic. Observation 
takes the form of prolonged investigation, or experi- 
ment. Its phenomena appear in successive times, in 
series, representing chains of consequences, and can 
only be investigated historically. The simplest prob- 
lems of the school-room, not less than the culture devel- 
opment of a race, have this characteristic. They are 
all processes of evolution, and their phenomena appear 
in periods, and must be observed through successive 
stages. In large part, the success or effectiveness of 
the observation lies in knowing what facts to look for, 
at least what type of facts, and where to look for them. 
And in a measure, this depends upon the hypothesis 
one holds. The one necessary warning is that, whatever 
the hypothesis, one must not allow it to warp the mind 
or distort the facts that are observed. 

The scientific method finds interesting and apt exem- 
plification in the modern study of educational ques- 
tions from the point of view of the school. The Na- 



194 Science of Education 

tional Society for the Scientific Study of Education; 
the Society of Educational Research ; the work of Clark 
University, and the movement it has stimulated; the 
several university psychological and pedagogical labo- 
ratories ; the individual, association and club or round- 
table efforts to promote child-study interests ; the Dewey 
School and the accompanying experiments there and 
elsewhere, with the " culture-epoch " theory; the more 
or less systematic inquiries, instituted in recent years, 
by the National Educational Association, into the work 
of different phases of public education — secondary 
schools, rural schools, normal schools, preparatory 
schools, college entrance requirements, history, the 
classics, English, mathematics, physical science, school 
statistics, etc. ; the current readjustment of city school 
and college courses; the revision of theories and educa- 
tional doctrine incident to the encroachment of indus- 
trial and technical instruction; all are more or less sig- 
nificant indications of the impulse to examine or re- 
examine the nature and conditions and progress of 
directed education. 

In all fairness to truth, it should be said that much of 
all this is scientific in appearance only, and promises 
little direct contribution to 'oiir verifiable knowledge of 
either educational or teaching processes. Much of it 
is little else than the recording of experience — often 
self-satisfied, insular and unverified, untested experi- 
ence. Even when there is at times a real effort 
to supplement experience by inquiry, it too often 
means only surface observation, that is in no sense 



The Scientific Method 195 

critical or selective. The experience dominates, and the 
observer sees what he wants to see or what he has seen 
only, and the trnth is colored by a predominant preju- 
dice. I^otmthstanding which, it must be admitted that 
all best modern investigations of such problems are 
being made in a well-disposed and fairly reasonable, 
if not always a scientific spirit. The chikl, his habits 
and preferences; his instincts and conduct; his motives 
and powers and limitations; his physical powers and 
growth, and their reaction upon the mind; his temper 
and tendencies are all being subjected, by one or an- 
other observer, to a strict inquiry, in much the same 
way as are the nature and habits of birds and bugs and 
flowers. As this implies, the study is detailed, patient, 
analytic. The technical and professional literature of 
the day is becoming filled with the research and its con- 
clusions. It is evident that the view of the teacher has 
greatly changed in a generation. To equip one thor- 
oughly for the work of instruction, his studies must be 
comparative and many-sided. 

Among all these, the most thoroughly scientific, be- 
cause of both the methods employed and the importance 
of the conclusions reached, are certain studies pursued 
in the great psychological laboratories. As bearing 
more or less directly upon the educational process, such 
are the experiments, having to do with the time ele- 
ment in mind functioning, rhythm, fatigue, sensation 
thresholds, pathological conditions, including defec- 
tives; and abnormal functions in otherwise normal or- 
ganisms, motor tendencies accompanying intellectual 



196 Science of Education 

action; the limits of effective attention, and genetic 
studies of the mind, generally. The natural history of 
habit, as worked out for pedagogy by the psychologists, 
is fascinatingly interesting, and worthy of study by 
the teacher ; as also the impulse to imitation. 

Among contributors to these studies, whose writings 
are accessible to English readers, may be named Taine 
(" On the Intelligence "), Bain (" The Senses and the 
Intellect"), Sully ("The Human Mind"), G. Groom 
Robertson, formerly editor of " Mind," Francis Galton 
(" Inquiries into Human Faculty " and other works), 
Mark Baldwin (Johns Hopkins University), James 
(Harvard), Ladd (Yale), Gattell (University of Penn- 
sylvania), Boyce (Harvard), Scripture (Yale), and 
particularly Dr. G. Stanley Hall, pupil in '79 and '80 
of Wundt, Leipsic, and who founded the first psycho- 
logical laboratory in this country, in 1883, at Johns 
Hopkins, and who began the publication of the "Amer- 
ican Journal of Psychology" four years later, and the 
" Pedagogical Seminary " in 1891. Besides these, there 
should be noted especially the services of Wundt at 
Leipsic, Preyer, Binet, Ribot (" On Memory "), Perez 
(observer of children), etc., most of whom are or may be 
known to American teachers through translation, also, 
of their writings. 

For teachers, particular interest attaches to the many 
and careful studies of adolescence, habit and imitation 
carried on by Hall, James, Royce and others, and the 
manifold investigations of child life, both by individ- 
uals and institutions, both in this country and abroad. 



The Scientific Method 197 

The amount of material already accumulated on the lat- 
ter topic is enormous. Much of it, because of inexpert 
observation and unintelligent record, must prove to be 
worthless, at least as data for inference, though very 
valuable as training for the observer. Added to these, 
also, mention should be made of the questionaire in- 
vestigations of the play instinct and its relation to 
growth on the one side, and to studies and assignments 
as a means of growth on the other. The starting-point 
of this interest was doubtless the kindergarten move- 
ment, though its consideration long since passed beyond 
the limits of that movement. The introduction of 
manual training, also, has both stimulated an investiga- 
tion of the motor accompaniments of mental activities 
and been reinforced by such inquiries. Professor 
James affirms * that " it is the essence of all conscious- 
ness (or of the neural process which underlies it) to 
instigate movement of some sort." And it appears 
from the most cursory professional studies even of chil- 
dren, that no experience may be regarded as complete 
that is not permitted to round itself out in some sort 
of expression, either in conduct or achievement. 

Among the more narrowly professional inquiries are 
included those into the social meanings of education, 
optional courses and voluntary exercises, the integration 
of the manifold of lessons into a body of experience 
and the process of the teaching art. Most of these, as 
well as several other topics, may be found among the 
lists of child-study undertakings, though they by no 
* James. "Psychology," vol. ii, p. 551. 



198 Science of Education 

means complete tlie inventory of investigations at- 
tempted. One bibliography gives a catalogue of more 
than 2,000 more or less serious contributions to this 
child-study interest. Some of them are of great prac- 
tical as well as theoretical value; some of them, many 
perhaps, are almost valueless. In the aggregate their 
great significance lies in the wide-spread interest which 
they have attracted and the generous and well-meant, 
if not always intelligent, co-operation among teachers. 
School people have been brought to thoughtfulness 
about their daily work. It has been dignified often, 
in their own estimate. A good many eyes have been 
opened to productive, simple, fruitful inquiries that 
before were closed. Among some, who were merely 
school-keepers or only indifferent, it has raised children 
to the rank of persons instead of objects. On the other 
hand, by their devotion to the dictates of child-study 
enthusiasts, certain teachers have become self-conscious 
in their teaching, and have fallen into a mechanically 
wooden routine. This is unfortunate, but is an un- 
avoidable incident of such reform. In the transition 
there must be some inefficiency. Whatever the form 
which this study of educational questions assumes, there 
are suggested by the above discussion certain obser- 
vations which should be regarded. 

First, for reliable results, there are needed trained 
observers, or, what will be found in the end quite as 
helpful to the profession, there is needed a body of 
earnest teachers who are also students, and who are 
ready to make every day's undertakings an object of 



The Scientific Method 199 

fresh, thoughtful, critical direction. To have a habit 
of purposely shaping all important exercises of the day 
in the light of the day's and the pupil's particular and 
passing conditions, will do much to cultivate just this 
power of acute and discriminating observation of the 
child's fixed traits. The ability quickly to recognize 
the new factors in a situation, to discover among chil- 
dren centres of energy and inhibition, to fix upon the 
important details in an observation, is a beginning for 
any real scientific study of school and educational prob- 
lems. And that one shall be able and satisfied to do 
this and to accept the reading of the facts, though it be 
contrary to one's habitual procedure, is no less im- 
portant. The self-satisfied and popularly successful 
teacher will not easily assume this impersonal interest. 
But it is important that he be brought to do so. He 
must be more anxious to discover what is the right 
way or the best way, or at least a better way, than 
know that either conforms to his way, and be ready 
to surrender his most cherished habit, long-standing 
practice, if it be found to contravene clearly discovered 
pupil conditions. This may mean a succession of tests, 
or a series of carefully arranged experiments covering 
days or even months, as in the use of a new set of 
teaching exercises, or a new order of tasks, or child 
standards of right behavior, or the length of most ef- 
fective recitation periods, etc. But any earnest teacher 
who will really set himself to study patiently, vigor- 
ously, impersonally, any one or another of these or 
similar school problems, and be content to persevere 



200 Science of Education 

to the attainment of some perceptible result, will find 
that the power to do so has been appreciably increased. 
Only so can the scientific spirit be acquired. By using 
the method one grows in power to use it. 

Its fruitfulness for the teacher is increased as he 
shows himself resourceful in discovering the possible — 
probable — meanings of the facts observed. Whatever 
the facts, and however clearly they may be seen and 
acknowledged, wrong-headed interpretation may wrest 
them from even an obvious meaning. " Others might 
have been — may have been — as familiar with the phe- 
nomena of the electrical agent and lightning as was 
Franklin and not sensed their identity, or failed to dis- 
cover oxygen though knowing all the facts Lavoisier 
knew, or to read into the observed motions of the 
planets what Copernicus saw, or into terrestrial gravity 
what Newton saw, or in a thousand minor conditions 
what their observers discovered." There is needed a 
mind habitually sensitive to the teachings of nature, 
and particularly child nature; interested in their mean- 
ings for their own sake; studious of professional prob- 
lems in an impersonal way; open-minded, as if work- 
ing in a laboratory. 

To this end there is needed also a large academic 
equipment of teachers to use the conclusions of the 
experts. Already far more is known of the ways of 
the mind, and the conditions of growth, and the 
moral significance of knowledge, and the value of the 
instincts, and the reinforcement of habit, and the inte- 
grations of experiences, and the incentives to learn- 



The Scientific Method 201 

ing than most of us are able to appropriate or utilize. 
It is doubtless some such conviction as this that prompt- 
ed Lester F. Ward to say : " Education means the uni- 
versal distribution of extant knowledge." If every 
cook knew and practised what the experts in culinary 
science know; if conditions of health and vigor were 
as well understood by the people as by the practitioner; 
if men knew their national history as the few know it, 
or music, or the criteria of art, or conduct; if every 
teacher knew and were in a position to use what science 
and philosophy and experience have worked out as 
worth while, the incident arts would be more effective 
and personal and social life richer in many ways. Not 
every teacher may be expected to be a scientist ; but the 
public has a right to expect that he who sets himself 
up to be a teacher shall have such mental equipment, 
in attainment and power, as to be able to appropriate 
in an effective way such conclusions of science and phi- 
losophy as will make the right doing of his work as a 
teacher more sure. 

The requirements of scientific investigation are 
neither many nor difficult of attainment ; but to those 
who are familiar with its methods, pedagogical ques- 
tions would be simplified ; and that the teachers' insights 
would be greatly enriched by a thoroughgoing, patient, 
unbiassed application of them by the teacher to a study 
of the child on the side of schooling, should call for no 
argument. In matters that immediately concern his 
daily work the teacher has unequalled opportunities 
for verifying conclusions. The school-room is his 



202 Science of Education 

laboratory, but tbe pupils constitute a miniature so- 
ciety in whose movements and reactions he finds the 
immediate and spontaneous test of the soundness of 
his inference. There is opportunity for daily revision 
and corrected testing and new experiment and repeated 
deductions. To find the right way of dealing with chil- 
dren, and to follow it, are his business. Every recita- 
tion affords a new opportunity of correcting mistakes 
of judgment or of observation. Doubtless it was in- 
evitable that the first critical studies of the educational 
process should be made by scientists in the study; but 
if the investigation is to be complete and the conclu- 
sions convincing, both investigations and conclusions 
must be furthered and tested and verified by regular 
teachers in the several school-rooms doing the accus- 
tomed tasks under ordinary conditions. Teachers 
must themselves become observers and know how wise- 
ly to apply their own conclusions. 

Primarily, every pedagogical problem, whether larger 
or smaller, has its three aspects, all of which, though 
of unequal importance, are yet necessary, each in its 
own way, for any complete consideration. There is, 
primarily, the simple, descriptive view which regards 
the individual object or fact, as the particular course 
of study, the specific act of disobedience, some one reci- 
tation, or text-book, or school programme, or mental 
process; a given habit, motive or interest. Subsequent 
to, higher than this and supplementing it, is the com- 
parative view, which examines together contemporary 
systems, or administrations, or equipments, or peda- 



The Scientific Method 203 

gogical doctrine, or interpretations of mind growth, 
or conditions and phenomena in the perspective of their 
development, i.e., historically. No interpretation of 
school or mind can be regarded as final that omits 
from the consideration of any act or experience, from 
any policy or system, the antecedents from which it 
grew. Details of management and discipline, the 
course of study, the act of teaching, the attitude of the 
public and current professional notions, are all prod- 
ucts of slow evolution and find their real interpreta- 
tion in terms of that evolution. 

rinally, there is the logical view, which exhibits 
the inherent causal relations ; the necessity of nature 
that explains the facts, the source and condition of 
the motive to right behavior, the reasons for individual 
wrong-doing, the prescriptive exercises as grounded in 
the needs of the child, discipline as rational and natural, 
etc. 1^0 one fact of the life is explained by any other 
co-ordinate fact; both must be explained, if at all, in 
terms of some larger fact, some whole of wdiicli they are 
parts or to which they are subordinate. Hence the neces- 
sity teachers are under to comprehend the principles of 
pedagogics as derived from the several contributing sci- 
ences. These constitute the matter for Parts III and 
IV of the Science of Education now to be considered. 



THE DATA OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 



CHAPTER XV 
THEIR GENERAL CHARACTER 

The composite character of the science of education 
is likely to give the impression of a lack of unity in 
its organization. This accounts for a doubt in certain 
quarters whether there be any such science possible. 
And if the aggregate of ideas were really not efficient- 
ly organized about some central, vitalizing thought, 
the doubt would be justified. The present section is 
given to a presentation and to a brief consideration of 
this unifying principle, as entertained by this work. 
That there is such principle in education, and poten- 
tially one for teaching, seems not less true upon reflec- 
tion than for the facts and practice of the law, or 
medicine, or engineering. Along with teaching, these 
and others that Avill occur to the reader are the sci- 
ences that differ from the sciences of botany, physics, 
chemistry, meteorology or electricity; inasmuch as these 
are concerned with the laws of their respective phe- 
nomena without reference to any other end to be at- 
tained. Those, on the contrary, are conditioned, both 
as to the selection of material and its arrangement or 
organization, by a direct reference to a coveted result 
to be achieved. Those two relations of educational 

207 



208 Science of Education 

science should be kept constantly in mind by the reader 
— viz., that this science is one which derives its ma- 
terials from a variety of sources, and that it is what 
has been called a normative science, i.e., it has refer- 
ence, both in its construction and in its derivative art, 
to the accomplishment of specific results. 

(1) Education has to do primarily with human 
growth. This is true whether the consideration be of 
education as such or the education that results from 
schooling. All else (than growth) is considered ser- 
viceable only as it (a) contributes to or (&) manifests 
this growth. Observation, imitation, thinking, play, 
manual employment, recitation, examination, conduct, 
all serve as either means or exponents of this growth. 
The act of studying or of teaching, maintenance of the 
system, the shifting interests of the child, can have one 
or the other of these meanings only, or both. There 
is a great temptation with both parents and teachers 
to exalt the means — books and lessons, things done 
and known, equipments, rank in class, prizes won and 
uniform deportment, and regard these as worthy of 
attainment for themselves. But whether the child learns 
much or little, important facts only will be retained. 
The value of the learning lies in the power and interest 
developed. Curiosity, observation, responsibility, obe- 
dience to rule, have no virtue in themselves, and are to 
be honored only for the manliness they arouse, the self- 
initiative, tlie growth in purposeful doing and effec- 
tive interest. Most well-directed, mlling exercise, the 
interested pursuit of studies, sight-seeing, reading, hand- 



Their General Character 209 

work, play, companionship, etc., are helpful as con- 
tributing to this growth. But the impulse to growth 
and the condition of growth fix their rank and value 
as instruments only. So the recitation and examina- 
tion, and the uniform respect for rules, and the char- 
acter of one's home behavior, and abiding or chosen 
interests, are eminently suggestive as manifestations of 
this growth, helpful to the teacher or the parent, as they 
give an insight into what these things are doing for the 
child. While the child himself considers the lessons 
and other interests as an all-sufficient end, the teacher 
must regard his maturing as the important fact, and 
all else as valuable for one or both of the two reasons 
named — means or sign of maturing. 

Whatever is instrumental in effecting this growth, 
in any degree, is educative and is to be respected. Some 
means are more effective than others. Based upon this 
difference in their effectiveness is the discriminative se- 
lection of means in teaching. Nature is able to do much 
for the child's maturing unaided by the school. One 
who sets himself up as his guide and preceptor may 
fairly be held to know, and to use the best means. He 
is inexcusable if he does not know; he is culpable if, 
knowing, he fails to employ that best means. But, 
while in the science of teaching the best only are per- 
missible, in the science of education all instruments that 
really serve to promote his development become parts 
of the science. As a consequence in considering educa- 
tion as a generic process, and not schooling merely, the 
means are found to be many and diverse. John Stuart 



210 Science of Education 

Mill, in defining education, said, " In its largest accepta- 
tion it comprehends even the indirect effects produced 
on character and the human faculties bj things of 
which the direct purposes are different — by laws, by 
forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes 
of social life ; nay, even by physical facts not dependent 
upon the human will; by climate, soil and local posi- 
tion." School education is much narrower, though 
resting upon the same impulses, and employing the same 
capacities and energy. This distinction is fundamental. 
It emphasizes the basic fact of the maturing process, and 
calls attention again to this as the organizing thought 
of the science. In the daily work of the teacher this 
must be kept constantly in mind. The limited time at 
his disposal makes it imperative that he employ the 
best means only — the most effective and the most 
economical. 

Once more, it should be observed that to whatever 
end this growth is directed, the process is educational. 
The act of learning and the elements of growth are the 
same and similarly initiated, in a course of vice as in the 
pursuit of virtue. One learns to swear, just as one 
learns to be courteous; to pick pockets, as to fish or swim. 
One may be educated to do wrong as well as do right. 
With different motives, the steps are the same in ac- 
quiring a habit of idleness, as of industry. The pro- 
cess in each case is toward a mastery of its particular 
experience and interests, and is distinctively educa- 
tional. The function of the school and of parents is 
to direct the activities into lines of right doing, social 



Their General Character 211 

sanities, physical health, industry and self-respect. The 
generic meaning of education, however, with which the 
science of education concerns itself, includes both as- 
pects. Indeed, it has come to be recognized that an 
insight into normal function is often clarified by an 
acquaintance with the pathologies of the mind — the 
wayward, the defective, and the undeveloped. 

Finally, all growth is consequent upon (1) the 
native impulse — the subjective, organic propensity to 
unfold; and (2) systematic direction — purposed educa- 
tion. The former is the active principle by virtue of 
which the incidental, impinging influences of one's envi- 
ronment are seized upon, assimilated, and become edu- 
cative. It is, hence, the initial factor in all mental cul- 
ture; it is the object of appeal in all intellectual stimu- 
lation. The latter belongs to the school chiefly, or to 
other agents that perform a part or all of the functions 
of the school, but is wholly conditioned by the former. 
In neither case can the learner be said to have any fore- 
sight of the real end of all this activity. The teacher 
should have such foresight, and should regulate his teach- 
ing acts in accordance with it. To the child, and well 
along in years, the passing interest is all there is to his 
doing. To the teacher, the present doing is but one of 
many possible doings, all looking to the same end — the 
pupil's maturing. He is the wise teacher who best 
knows how to preserve through the years this native 
propelling interest and effort — as a first factor, to which 
her own best far-seeing efforts can be only a second — a 
feeble, but very necessary second. Every year during 



212 Science of Education 

which the enthusiasms and eager, confident optimism 
and responsiveness of interest can be prolonged beyond 
mere childhood is so much gained for the pupil. It 
lengthens the period of acquisition, and so of rapid 
growth. Real alertness of mind after the age of 25 
(as well as before), means rich accumulations of 
culture and abundance of life. Many of us might quote 
the words and adopt the thought of the poet,* who 
speaks of himself as " with whetted knives of worldli- 
ness, putting his own child-heartedness to death." He 
says of himself in manhood : 

" There is no little child within me now, 

To sing back to the thrushes, to leap up 
When June winds kiss me, when an apple bough 

Laughs into blossoms, or a buttercup 
Plays with the sunshine, or a violet 

Dances in the glad dew — alas ! alas ! 

The meaning of the daisies in the grass 
I have forgotten. 

For lis there is not any silver sound 

Of rhythmic wonder springing from the ground. 

" Woe worth the knowledge and the bookish lore 

Which makes men mummies ; weighs out every grain 

Of that which was miraculous before, 

And sneers the heart down with the scofling brain. 

Woe worth the peering, analytic days 
That dry the tender juices in the breast, 
And put the thunders of the Lord to test 

So that no marvel must be, and no praise, 
Nor any God except necessity. 

* Ricliard Realf. Poems, " My Slain Self." 



Their General Character 213 

What can you give my poor starved life in lieu 
Of this dead cherub which I slew for you ? 

Take back your doubtful wisdom, and renew 
My early foolish freshness of the dunce 
Whose simple instinct guessed the heavens at oncel " 

To have conserved for the adult years so much of 
this curious, interested, believing eagerness of the child- 
hood of each, that the man, too, may be a student, is 
one reasonable function of the school; that, along with 
his coolness of judgment, and responsibilities borne, 
and chastened temper, there may go, also, something 
of the spontaneity of the boy that found joy in know- 
ing, and abounding pleasure in doing. 

(2) The constitution of the learner fixes the orders 
or phases of this growth. Whether the creature be a 
plant, a beast or a man, how it grows, or what may be 
done with its growth, depends upon what the growth is. 
The first may be pruned and shaped ; the second inured 
or accustomed; the third educated or disciplined. The 
chief difference lies in their unlike reactions upon in- 
fluence. Education, having to do with human growth, 
finds the conditions and character of this growth pre- 
determined in the character of man as man. What- 
ever the stages, therefore, or characteristics, these will 
be the same among all classes and with all individuals; 
whatever the race, or sex, or social condition, or bodily 
health, or antecedents, or language. There will be 
found considerable differences in the rate of matur- 
ing, the physical or other predispositions, responsive- 
ness to stimuli, nervous energy, personal initiative, etc. 



214 Science of Education 

But the unlikeness is not at all one of kind, but of de- 
gree. Tins must be recognized of the races — as negro 
and Caucasian ; of Western and Asiatic nations ; of civ- 
ilized and primitive peoples. 

At this beginning of the twentieth century, when 
millions of the little more than semi-civilized are at 
the back doors of our Western civilization, or in our 
midst, attacked from every side by new influences, 
beset with new standards of living, finding strange 
motives prevail, and an infinite detail of life about 
them; when Asiatic, and Islander, and negro are es- 
saying new institutions, and the white man's foreign 
path is found, not in the tropics alone, but in the far 
corners of the earth, teaching undeveloped men the 
ways of a tame and domestic life ; there is afforded an 
opportunity for a most promising study of the processes 
of education among an emerging and growing people. 
Never before in the world's history has there been such 
convenience for the study of the steps and conditions 
of progress of an improving race. The human quality, 
which gives character to the growth, is present in all. 
The capacity will be found to vary greatly, not only 
among individuals, but between the nations; so, of per- 
sonal energy, and the emphasis or bias of particular 
faculties. But the generic human quality is common. 

Once more, the classifications must hold, as funda- 
mentally true, for all philosophical systems. One or 
another order of growth may be emphasized as impor- 
tant by one school of thinkers, and a different order by 
another school; but the phases of growth are real, and 



Their General Character 215 

can only be differently ranked by the several inter- 
preters. Two writers, whose points of view are as un- 
like as those of Herbert Spencer and Friedrich Froebel, 
differ chiefly as to their pedagogical dicta in the dif- 
ferent emphasis they place upon the various functions — 
not at all as to their recognition of these functions. 

Lastly, the classification must be such as to be valid, 
equally, for all ages of the individual. Here, again, 
one or another form of this growth may characterize 
one period of life; but all are present at each period. 
Physiologically, there is little change that can be called 
development after the age of twenty-five. Intellectu- 
ally, most habits are well fixed before middle life. But 
both these and the material functions are obvious at 
all ages as human traits, and give character to both 
pedagogical systems and school practice. 

(3) These orders of growth appear as three, and as 
follows: (1) physiological, (2) mental or intellectual, 
and (3) moral. Rosenkranz names them as: (1) physi- 
cal, or orthobiotics; (2) intellectual, or didactics; and 
(3) practical, or pragmatics. By Alexander Bain they 
are still differently named, though not essentially unlike 
in meaning: (1) physical, which, in his system, is ex- 
cluded from education; (2) intellectual, leading to psy- 
chology and true education; and (3) emotional, which 
furnishes the motive in education. Plato implies simi- 
lar notions, when, highly regarding the physical order, 
as did all of the Greeks, he insists (see definition 32, 
J). 34) that the aim of education is, not to make man 
more knowing, simply, but more moral. Psycholo- 



216 Science of Education 

gists, generally, have made similar groupings, thoiigli 
they have been variously named. In modern pedagog- 
ical science, the first appears rather as neural growth, 
than as general physical or physiological even; some- 
times, as psycho-physical. But in terms of the most 
pronounced materialism even, the phenomena called 
mental, however rooted in the bodily functions, are 
regarded as distinct. Lewes,* who regards psychol- 
ogy as a branch of biology, says also : " We say that 
we are both body and mind, "^^''o know that we exist 
as objects, perceptible to our senses, and to the senses 
of others; and as subjects, percipient of objects, and 
conscious of feelings. We live, feed, and move. We 
feel, think, and will. The solidity, form, color, weight, 
and motions of the body constitute the objective, visible 
self. The sensations, ideas, and volitions constitute the 
subjective intelligible self. Thus opposed, there is the 
broadest of all possible distinctions between body and 
mind." All agree in setting off the knowing functions 
into a somewhat distinct class, though they receive vari- 
ous rating at the hands of different schools. 

Under the third division are included the conative 
powers, whether called the will, or the desires, or the 
practical functions. In the context, Rosenkranz explains 
his three groups in terms of (1) life, (2) cognition, 
and (3) ethics; and under the second includes aesthetic 
training; as social, moral, religious and political train- 
ing are regarded as elements of will education or prag- 
matics. Dr. Harris translates the three forms of growth 
* G. H. Lewes. " Problems of Life and Mind," p. 10. 



Their General Character 217 

here named into technical meaning, as (1) correct 
living, (2) correct thinking, and (3) correct action. 

As has been seen. Bain would exclude the bodily 
functioning from educational considerations, though 
clearly recognizing it as a human characteristic. Pro- 
fessor James* writes: "Desire, wish, will are states of 
mind which every one knows, and Avhich no definition 
can make plainer;" though he insists that "effort of 
attention is the essential jDhenomenon of the wall" 
(p. 562), and that "voluntary movements must be sec- 
ondary, not primary functions of our organism." Most 
mental acts are explained in terms of neural change, 
but they are regarded as " mental " and not " neural." 
Bodily function, discrimination and the control or pur- 
poseful employment of these represent three orders of 
growth, all generally accepted, and all intimately con- 
nected with human education. How they are so con- 
nected and the relations of each to the other must be 
considered in the following chapter. 

•"Psychology," ii, p. 486. 



CHAPTER XVI 
GENERAL CPIARACTER OF DATA (Concluded) 

As has been indicated in previous paragraphs, these 
several orders of growths are variously related in dif- 
ferent educational theories, according as one or another 
receives the emphasis. 

(a) Education may exalt the body, and material com- 
fort, and bodily skill, and strength, and efficiency, and 
magnify the value of athletics, out of all proportion to 
the claims of the spiritual life. 

(h) It may exalt the mind, as perceiving, knowing 
and thinking faculty, and honor the sound body as an 
instrument only, 

(c) It may set up for its object a realization of the 
highest moral character, of personal and social effi- 
ciency, and seek the generous culture of associated 
powers, as it contributes to this end. 

(d) It may seek the harmonious and well balanced, 
though not necessarily equal development of all three. 

Naturally, in each of these there may be different 
degrees of emphasis put upon the central factor; and, 
along with these four quite distinct schools of educa- 
tional theory, there are numerous modifications of 

218 



General Character of Data 219 

them. But of the four groups each stands for a fairly 
distinct interpretation. 

Of the first it may be claimed that the movement for 
industrial training (as in the beginning, certainly), that 
sees in the trade acquired a legitimate end of education, 
is a phase of this interpretation. Recent purposes in 
manual training have grown away from this concep- 
tion appreciably, and most persons immediately inter- 
ested in such work regard all hand exercises as having 
distinct intellectual and social bearings. But, in actual 
practice, in the shop, and using tools, this meaning is 
often forgotten, or has never been apprehended, and 
skill rather than resourcefulness is the end sought to be 
attained. Parents, the children themselves, and the em- 
ploying public, almost uniformly demand that the 
school shall show specific results in skill of some sort — 
immediate efficiency. 

Hence the growing demand for the merely or nar- 
rowly " practical " studies in schooling. They take 
their rise in the same notion. Among such branches 
are book-keeping, brick-making, broom-making, car- 
pentry, cooking, dressmaking, laundry, millinery, 
painting (house or sign), plastering, plumbing, print- 
ing, sewing, shoemaking, stenography, tailoring, teleg- 
raphy, typewriting, and weaving; all found in re- 
cent lists of such assignments for relatively elementary 
instruction. The introduction and, where tried, the 
great success of school savings banks are further evi- 
dence of this emphasis put upon the first order of 
growth. Physical training, also, both of the more 



220 Science of Education 

coarse and the finer forms, stands for an especial im- 
portance attached to the development of the bodily 
functions — strength, health, skill, grace, agility, etc. 
All such training has its intellectual reference ; but it is 
evident that, in practice, at least, whatever may be the 
theory, the ends sought are physical, or physiological, 
at least narrowly practical, and it looks to material 
products and comforts — not mental. Of course, there 
are important and wholesome intellectual and moral 
by-products of athletics; but they are by-products, 
rather than purposed aims. 

In a similar sense, the very general and zealous 
interest that has been shown in recent years in fur- 
thering instruction in the physiological effects of nar- 
cotics and stimulants, and the positive inculcation 
of temperance principles, and the renewed and ag- 
gressive interest in all questions of school hygiene, 
sanitary plumbing, and heating and seating of school 
buildings, and the professional medical inspection and 
oversight of schools and the general public, touching 
conditions of health and bodily comfort, are forms of 
this same singling out of this first order of growth as 
basic and worthy of first consideration in a pedagogical 
system. That the school has for its purjiose to train 
the young for citizenship, also, depreciates, in the aver- 
age mind, to the same sentiment. In the pragmatic use 
of the term by Rosenkranz, civic training, politics and 
ethics belong to the third order of growth, but the cur- 
rent conception of civics is something far less noble. 
That the public schools should be devoted to training 



General Character of Data 221 

the youth for citizenship, hints at specific equipment 
rather than richer living, and belongs to the first order. 

The second assumption is that education may exalt 
the mind, as perceiving, knowing, and thinking faculty, 
and honor the sound body as instrument only, and the 
will as its executive. 

Primarily, this reveals faith in the regenerative in- 
fluences of the knowing mind; that the possession of 
truth itself is a moral power. In the history of the race, 
it appears that as men have grown more knowing they 
have groAvn better. Life is safer; property is safer. 
Along with the " struggle for existence," there has gone 
also, as Mr. Drummond would say, an increasing 
" struggle for the existence of others." Considerate- 
ness and sympathy have appreciated in value. Public 
confidence between man and man has been shown in 
innumerable ways, and has been justified by the mar- 
vellous gi'owth of the institutional interests resting upon 
this confidence. Human treatment of the defective, the 
wayward and the afllicted has become the rule of civic 
as well as individual action. The nobler sentiments 
and standards of conduct are in repute. Along with in- 
crease of knowledge has gone an increase of moral in- 
tegrity. The unrelenting severity of early legislation 
to protect life and property and reputation has been 
much reduced. Mere knowledge, abundance of knowl- 
edge, acquaintance with truth and its embodiment in 
things and human actions, a mind in vital touch with 
fact and not with opinions and prejudices — such knowl- 
edge seems to contain within it a positive impulse 



222 Science of Education 

toward correct living, i.e., correct thinking as stimu- 
lating correct doing. 

In any event, in educational doctrine, this emphasis 
of intellectual growth through acquisition reveals a 
confidence in the moral sanities of the understand- 
ing. This does not always appear to be confirmed 
in the individual life, or in a given neighborhood. 
But when considered broadly it is held to be a valid 
contention. The proposition also involves a subor- 
dination, in thought at least, of the body, and the 
sensuous life, and material comfort and achievement, 
to the attainments of the intellectual life. For a thou- 
sand years or more, the schools, both implicitly and in 
words, have held to their doctrine both in theory and 
in practice, that mental acumen, abundant insight, great 
scholarship, mental alertness, intellectual power were 
the primary aims of education, all else being incidental. 
The importance of knowledge has been magnified, and 
education made synonymous with great learning. 
Courses of study have made an almost exclusive appeal 
to the understanding. Things and theories, and codes, 
and creeds, and customs, and constitutions, and achieve- 
ments have been studied only, and their making or 
practice has been left to chance. Programs and re- 
wards, and tests, and honorable recognition, have had to 
do with attainment, not right living. 

Whatever the systems of doctrine may have taught, 
the schools have stood almost solidly for the pre-emi- 
nence of this growth of the second order — the intellec- 
tual. Matthew Arnold said : " The ideal of a general 



General Character of Data 223 

liberal education is to carry us to a knowledge of our- 
selves and the world." Compayre : " Education is the 
culture of thought and reason." Jevons : " It is the 
purpose of education so to exercise the faculties of the 
mind that the infinitely various experience of after life 
may be observed and reasoned upon to the best effect." 
Ogden : " The end of education is the power or art of 
thinking." Ward: "Education means the universal 
distribution of extant knowledge." All of which defini- 
tions, quoted on a previous page, like many more that 
might be given, emphasize the intellectual point of view 
in education. 

It is obvious that with such ends in view, the culture 
of the memory receives attention, frequently, to the 
neglect, almost, if not the contempt, of other functions. 
The question at present is not concerning the wisdom, 
the necessity of cultivating the memory, but of the oc- 
casional or frequent, and, in places, too exclusive atten- 
tion to it. The common respect for " book-learning," 
and the effort to " put the individual in possession of 
the race's culture," and the accompanying machinery 
of the schools, have had this tendency, almost without 
exception. In the elementary schools it leads to the 
learning of lessons, and, in the higher schools, to indoc- 
trination, the storing of information, the exalting of 
authority, and, more or less certainly, to the laxity of 
personal effort. In this sense, it is set over against in- 
dividual judgment and afiirmative interest. 

On the side of race characteristics, the cultivation 
of the memory contributes to the achievement of a uni- 



224 Science of Education 

form and fixed culture, conservative and traditional; 
to stable institutions, but unyielding and non-progres- 
sive. This is exemplified in the Chinese character and 
social order. On the other hand, an emphasis of the 
individual judgment and the creative powers of the 
mind, rather than the slavish following of authority, 
produces in time a less stable intellectual and social 
system, certainly, but one correspondingly progressive. 
Both faculties are important, but each is subject to 
great excesses of treatment. 

Most controversial definitions or characterizations of 
education seem formulated to combat what are thought 
to be the exaggerations incident to this second view of 
the 'process. Definitions (23) and (26) are literally of 
this class. " Education," said David P. Page, " is de- 
velopment ; not instruction merely, but discipline " ; 
and Dr. Sheib : " The object of education must remain 
imperfectly defined, so long as there is not a clearly ex- 
pressed intention of making the future man or woman 
a moral power; of conferring true worth upon the in- 
dividual." A too exclusive regard for intellectual de- 
velopment tends to obscure the maturing of other 
functions that are important. 

Once more, all industrial education that seeks to use 
the manual arts as occasions for intellectual discrimina- 
tion and interest is of this class. This is, perhaps, the 
prevalent attitude of the profession to-day, touching the 
value of all constructive exercises in the schools; that 
employment with the manual arts utilizes certain deter- 
mining instincts of the child, and so arouses the mind 



General Character of Data 225 

to clearer perception and judgment, and stimulates the 
creative powers, to tlie degree that the employment 
becomes primarily a mental process, and only incident- 
ally meclianical. The emphasis is placed upon the intel- 
lectual effort and alertness, not upon the manual skill. 
So, a like intelligent and conservative practice of ath- 
letics, and calisthenic and gymnastic exercises is refer- 
able to this interpretation. 

There are intellectual reactions in all systematic ath- 
letic exercises; often, quick and accurate vision, clear 
thinking, a ready understanding and right interpreta- 
tion of play conditions, etc. But the chief value, per- 
haps, aside from the strength, agility and endurance 
acquired, lies on the ethical side, which will be discussed 
elsewhere. The finer mental effects are connected with 
the general calisthenics, and the regular exercise of the 
gymnasium; health and soundness and responsiveness 
of bodily functions being desired immediately for them- 
selves, but ultimately for the wholesome reactions upon 
the mind. 

The third assumption named is, that among the pos- 
sible forms of human growth, education may have for 
its object a realization of the highest moral character, 
and further the generous culture of associated powers, 
as they contribute to this end. Of the definitions given 
on pp. 34—39, three include specific mention of the 
moral faculty as an object of concern in education; 
and six, in various terms, name its development as the 
essential fact. By some this appears to be held as a 
religious issue, by others as ethical or social. Again, 



226 Science of Education 

it is purity of personal life tliat is insisted upon; integ- 
rity of character, a fine sense of duty and devotion to 
the right. But among them all, and by many others 
whose words have not been quoted, the highest impor- 
tance is attached to personal worthiness as concerns the 
good, the right, a proper sense of decency, social re- 
sponsibilities, and devotion to one's highest ideals, as 
ends to be aimed at in all directed education. The an- 
cient Hebrew ideal was that men might become faithful 
servants of Jehovah; Aristotle's, the attainment of hap- 
piness through perfect virtue; Luther's, more effective 
service in Church and State ; Comenius's, to attain eter- 
nal happiness in and with God; Francke's, to prepare 
for a life of usefulness and piety; Froebel's (as already 
noted), " the realization of a faithful, pure, inviolate, 
and hence holy life." ^N'ominally, at least, this is the 
avowed ground for separate Catholic instruction. In- 
deed, it is the attitude of the Protestant Church, as a 
Church, and the essential character of its pulpit teach- 
ing. " The Church alone," says Brother Azarias, " is 
competent to pronounce upon the teachers and guaran- 
tee their accuracy in the matter of faith and morals." 
An occasional Protestant protest against the present- 
day tendency toward the secularizing of schooling is 
in the same spirit. 

The experiences of mankind are various; some of 
them regard a moral quality in acts, i.e., have to do 
with the factor of rightness and wrongness. Some of 
them are indifferent to this quality. In child-life the 
latter predominate. As one grows older these become 



General Character of Data 227 

relatively fewer, those more numerous. This is, with- 
out doubt, the tendency of all right education — so to 
moralize the life that experiences which should share 
this meaning are so recognized. 

Now this conception of acts as right or wrong, good 
or bad, has a threefold reference: there are, first, the 
duties to one's self — education, conscientiousness, con- 
sistency, self-respect, etc. ; second, his obligations to 
his fellows ; and, finally^ his relations of reverence 
toward the universal principle of good — the power 
that makes for righteousness. The last comprises 
the field of religion ; the second, ethics ; the first, 
self-duties. Each of these, under the third order 
of growth, may be taken as the central aim of edu- 
cation. The generic term for the whole, as here 
used, is morality — having to do with the conduct of 
man toward those of his kind. All attention, in edu- 
cation, directed upon the soul life and the higher spir- 
itual qualities, as distinct from mere intellectual train- 
ing, is of the third type; the growth of the mission 
spirit, social co-operation, considerateness for others, 
and an increase of personal characteristics in conduct, 
are aspects of ethical progress; worshipfulness, rever- 
ence, devoutness, belong to the first. The function of 
the Church is to exalt the qualities which worshipfulness 
typifies. The tendency of progressive contemporary 
schooling is to emphasize the second. The duty of the 
school to socialize the child is a part, at least, of the 
present-day school's pedagogical creed. 

There never was a time, probably, when religion had 



228 Science of Education 

less positive and more effective incidental attention in 
the schools than to-day. There certainly never was a 
time when the child's ethical nature received so much or 
so wise encouragement. This is conceded to the needs 
of the child, not to the needs of society. So education 
should be made essentially and purposely religious for 
the individual, because it is important to him, not 
to the Church to have it so. Among educational 
theories education may have for its object a realization 
of the highest moral character, and foster the gen- 
erous culture of associated powers as they contribute 
to this end. 

Finally, education may seek the harmonious and 
balanced, though not necessarily equal, development of 
all orders of growth. This conception is suggested in 
Herbart's phrase, " a balanced many-sidedness of in- 
terest." Of the forty-eight definitions quoted, seven 
specifically name the several organic functions, and 
three others very plainly imply them. A dozen others 
evidently, but less definitely, make the same suggestion. 
Plato certainly had the same thought when he wrote 
of "giving to the body and the soul all the perfection 
of which they are susceptible," as being the aim of 
education. In more than a merely nominal sense this 
has been the theory of the centuries, to make education 
comprehensive of all important functions. But, for 
long periods in the history of the race, now one and 
now another of those named have not been highly re- 
garded in practice. In ascetic ages the body has been 
depreciated; when religious fervor has dominated, the 



General Character of Data 229 

culture of the intellect has been undervalued. Under 
the influence of scepticism and protest the morals have 
often suffered. Positive movements for the proj^or- 
tioned and reasonable recognition of all belong to com- 
paratively recent times. After the Greeks for nearly 
twenty centuries the bodily functions were practically 
ignored in all training; throughout the Middle Ages 
the instruction of the intellect was little more than a 
form of mental gymnastics. 

The modern demand for physical culture comes 
(ostensibly) as an attempt to proportion the results of 
education to heretofore neglected functions. The words 
of Huxley * formulate a creed that must command 
respect: "That man, I think," he says, "has had a 
liberal education who has been so trained in youth that 
his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with 
ease and pleasure all the work it is capable of; whose 
intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, %vith all its parts 
of equal strength and in smooth working order, ready, 
like a steam-engine, to be turned to any work, and spin 
the gossamers, as well as forge the anchors, of the 
mind ; whose mind is stored with the great and funda- 
mental truths of nature and of the laws of her opera- 
tions; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and 
fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by 
a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience ; 
who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature 
or of art, to hate all vileness, and to resj^ect others as 
himself." Rousseau contends that " the great secret 
* Huxley. " Science and Education," p. 86. 



230 Science of Education 

of education is to manage it so that the training of 
the mind and the body shall sei've to assist each 
other." 

What is referred to in the foregoing paragraph is not 
athletics, but gymnastics ; such physical training as se- 
cures to every individual the, for him, maximum health, 
and freshness of vigor, and joy in effort, to the end that 
his thinking and reasoning be clear, and his heart and 
purposes chastened, though having to do with sound 
organs. The access of interest in physical, and espe- 
cially gymnastic, training in this country was induced 
by the experiences of the Civil War, just as a similar 
revival of such interests came to Germany after the 
Franco-Prussian war; but the current tendency, in 
theory, if not in athletic practice, is toward an orderly 
and proportioned stimulus of bodily, mental, and civic 
functions, to the end that each shall reinforce the other 
in the most effective way. 

The plea for art, and general aesthetic culture also, 
and attractive environment for home and public life 
has a like ground in a recognition of the needs of the 
manifold nature of man. The increase of time given in 
the schools to art and music and literature, and their 
earlier commencement in the grades, and especially 
their more general introduction into the course of study, 
are signs of a concession, if nothing more, on the part 
of the public, of art culture as a legitimate need. This 
movement has been supplemented in many schools, 
both in urban and comparatively rural sections, by an- 
other which seeks, by collections of paintings, and 



General Character of Data 231 

reprints, and statuary, and tastefully designed and fin- 
ished architecture, and by library and fine-art illustra- 
tions, and attempts at landscape gardening, to give the 
public, and especially the schools, an environment 
stimulating to the finer senses, and to a love for the 
beautiful. Manual training also, which is allied more 
directly with industrial arts, has its fine-art reference 
in all grades, and shares in this meaning. In the 
general effort to make due recognition of each order 
of growth, or each type of human faculty, all construc- 
tive exercises have been immensely dignified ; and many 
forms of intellectual and moral activities find, in this 
handwork, their complement in expression. The plea 
for industrial and fine-art training is a part of the 
prevalent attempt to proportion the achievements of the 
school to an all-round education. 

The charge laid at the door of the public schools 
that they are " godless," and the arguments for and 
defense of the Bible in them, are a phase of a similar 
movement — to equalize the claims of culture on an- 
other side. The discussion as a whole, diverse as it is, 
and often antagonistic or contradictory, is a serious, 
sometimes aimless, often ill-tempered, but on the wdiole 
a well-meant endeavor to effect a development of pow- 
ers tliat shall be really harmonious and balanced, omit^ 
ting no important function. This paragraph does not 
concern the soundness or unsoundness of any factious 
contention. It is meant only that the contention itself 
represents a common desire to find the legitimate 
grounds for an education that shall be complete, and is 



232 Science of Education 

an encouraging sign of a growing public interest in 
educational doctrine. 

Sununarizing these conditions on the general char- 
acter of the data of educational science, then: one's 
conception of education may exalt the attainment and 
presei*vation of health and physical vigor and comfort, 
or a disciplined and furnished intelligence, or the 
achievement of a high and habitually moral character, 
or a union of these in a body of mutually reinforcing 
faculties. Each has had, and yet has, its adherents, 
sincere, capable, aggressive advocates, because of whose 
clear vision fundamental educational doctrine has 
profited. 

A science of education will be conditioned, there- 
fore, as to form, by the nature of the philosophy 
whence come its interpretations of human life. The 
first, in exalting the present and material comfort, and 
conceding the claims of expediency, is utilitarian or 
materialistic. The second, finding the initiative in the 
knowing mind, is scientific or rational. The third, in 
the emphasis put upon moral and religious character, 
is ethical or spiritual. The fourth, aiming at a pro- 
portioned training of all forms of human faculty, 
appears as idealistic. Among the authors whose defi- 
nitions are quoted on pages 34-39, Spencer (as he has 
formulated his ideas on education) would fairly rep- 
resent the first; Jevons and Ward the second; Froebel 
the third; and Emerson and Hegel the fourth. 

Any system of experience that looks to j^articular 
equipment and adjustments is so far utilitarian. The 



General Character of Data 233 

Unaided education incident to evolution, as a natural 
process, is of this sort. It is taken up with adjust- 
ments, surviving because of " fitness to survive," a 
process of " natural selection," which environment, re- 
acting upon inherited tendencies, forces upon one. 
Living is a constant adaptation to the conditions of life. 
And education comes to be learning to live well (at 
least well enough to survive) the life — the best life 
even that is about one. In the school, directed educa- 
tion seeks to accomplish tJiis adjustment with foresight 
of the end and with economy of means. The teaching 
of trades, desirable conventional codes, caste and civic 
order, ceremonies, particular knowledge, skill in the 
guise of unthinking habits, any selected practice of 
goodness even, or standard of behavior, is an example 
of this philosophic bias. 

The second rej}resents the technical or academic bias. 
Learning is valued for its own sake; not information, 
but knowledge ; ideas organized into power for culture. 
In this spirit is has been said, " Learning is the mother 
of all virtue; all vice proceeds from ig-norance." In 
the Renaissance, after the long, dark period of the 
middle centuries, learning came upon Europe like ver- 
nal showers. It was the tangible expression of a bene- 
diction. It was not strange that the intellect was 
exalted. So much had been known that was lost to the 
people, so much might be regained. He who knew 
became the teacher. Learning was following. Educa- 
tion meant scholarship. Knowledge was exalted; it 
promised to be reformation; it became conservative. 



234 Science of Education 

But down through the generations of the modem age 
the thought has persisted that, if made liberal enough, 
and universal enough, its reactions would touch the 
will also, and the heart, and make men good. Presi- 
dent Eliot says,* " The three functions of universities 
are: to teach truth, to accumulate stores of knowl- 
edge (libraries), and to search for new truth." With- 
unimportant exceptions, school and university educa- 
tion is still of this sort. Compulsory schooling, and 
prescriptive courses, and academic endowments, and 
lecture halls, and the book habit, are evidences of the 
contemporary faith in the power of learning to regen- 
erate the man. Enthusiasts in exact knowledge, pro- 
fessional philanthropists, the universities generally, and 
propagandists of every sort, busy themselves upon the 
principle that there is an efficient margin of saving 
faith in learning as such, provided only it be real 
learning. This is tlie rational tlieory and belongs pri- 
marily to the study and the laboratory. For advanced 
students the view has much in its favor. 

The third philosophy places the emphasis upon 
wholeness and wholesomeness of personal character. 
In its best import this does not mean ceremonial good- 
ness, or ecclesiastical connection, or devotion to conven- 
tional creeds or codes, though the practice easily de^ 
generates into one or all of these. It does mean the 
earnest soul and the furnished mind dedicated to good- 
ness and right. Often, too often, the emphasis is upon 
the goodness ; forgetting both the moral energy and 

* "Educational Reform," p. 225. 



General Character of Data 235 

the mental furnishing; forgetting that ignorant piety 
which has neglected opportunities to take on wisdom is 
neither creditable nor safe. Moral soundness, unsup- 
ported by an improving understanding, is already on 
the road to decay. The wisdom and understanding 
which Solomon asked, and which were granted him, 
are, in more than sixty texts of the Hebrew and Chris- 
tian Bibles, coupled with the rightness of heart that 
brought commendation. Together they stand for an 
integrity of character and devotion to high, unselfish 
ideals that may well command respect. This has been 
called the spiritual or ethical view, in accordance with 
which the purposes of the teacher, the spirit of the 
system, and the method of instruction converge upon 
the production of the typical man, in a moral sense. 

The fourth form of philosophy is the abstractly 
idealistic and regards each order of growth with indif- 
ference, as compared with the others ; i.e., what is 
sought as an ideal result in education is a free com- 
merce of interests in the individual, and each function 
brought to its highest state of efficiency in temis of the 
other. Here " the harmonious and equable evolution 
of human powers " is set up as the ideal; the emotions, 
the understanding, and the will; thinking, expression, 
and appreciation ; body, mind, and heart — all to be so 
recognized and so exercised as to effect an integral 
character of purpose and achievement, responsive to 
truth, sensitive to the beautiful, devoted to the good. 

The recent considerable extension of the school courses 
of every grade is probably a more or less conscious 



236 Science of Education 

effort to round out the circle of the student's funda- 
mental activities. So there appears in even the ele- 
mentary programmes, music, art, industrial training, 
literature, history, civics, personal and public hygiene, 
science, the humanities, foreign languages, current 
events, morals, and collateral studies of manifold sorts, 
prescribed in addition to the original courses. Dis- 
ciplinary studies are supplemented by the utilities ; 
physical training is made to parallel mental training; 
certain schools of pedagogy are drawing attention to 
the cardinal significance of moral training; in various 
ways we are reminded that some form of expression is 
vital to all experience, that education is fundamentally 
a social fact, and that among child traits the aesthetic 
sense is generic and primary. Philosophic criticism is 
evidently reaching for some central principle that shall 
unify the seemingly conflicting claims while being all- 
inclusive of essentials. The system is ideal and crit- 
ical. As never before the influences of education are 
being tried upon the wayward and criminal classes, 
the feeble-minded and the backward races. Ordered 
industrial training is being taxed for moral and intel- 
lectual results. The teachings of history are appealed 
to for guidance to conduct and a liberal interpretation 
of creeds and codes. The sense of brotherhood grows, 
and the ascetic temper fades. Whatever the philosophy, 
these ideas have become forces in most educational 
theory and in much school practice. The conception is 
doubtless of ideal ends along with very unideal condi- 
tions, but the situation is encouraging. 



^art four 
CONTRIBUTING SCIENCES 



CHAPTER XVn 

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF MIND 

In his "Manual of Ethics/' Prof. John S. Mac- 
kenzie makes, and admirably expresses, a serviceable 
distinction between what are called normative sciences* 
and others, as follows : " A science, it is said, teaches 
us to know, and an art to do; but a normative science 
teaches us to know how to do; . . . it is a kind 
of science that has a very direct relation to a corre- 
sponding art. There is scarcely any art that is not 
indirectly related to a great number of different sci- 
ences. The art of painting, for instance, may derive 
useful lessons from the science of optics, anatomy, 
botany, geology, and a great variety of others. The 
art of navigation, in like manner, is much aided by 
the sciences of astronomy, .magnetism, acoustics, hydro- 
statics, etc. But such relationships are comparatively 
indirect. The dependence of an art upon its corre- 
••^ponding normative science is of a very much closer 
character." Astronomy is the foundation of the art 
of ocean navigation, calendar-making and uses, chro- 
nology, etc. Medicine refers habitually to physiology, 

' * "The Sciences that Lay Down Rules or Laws," p. 8. 
239 



240 Science of Education 

botany, chemistry; teaching to physiology, psychology, 
ethics, logic, etc. The more general science of educa- 
tion is comprehensive of facts and principles derived 
from these last and certain other scieHces. It is com- 
plex, and the relations between this and its contributing 
sciences are not always immediately discernible. That 
there are sudi connections of dependence will appear 
in the discussion. 

The purpose of this division of Part IV is to in- 
ventory and essay a consideration of the constituent 
materials of the science of education, regarding at the 
same time their sources and organizations. 

The Physiological Relations of Mind 

Whatever be the jDhilosophy, educational science must 
gather one class or group of materials from a study of 
the physiological conditions of life and experience. It 
has been affirmed in preceding chapters that education 
has to do primarily with the mind. The thesis here 
submitted does not weaken that contention. Man recog- 
nizes himself as both body and mind, so related that 
each, in its way, is dependent upon the other. Through- 
out the history of the science of psychology this has 
been taken for granted. But within the last generation 
respect for the physiological phenomena has been much 
increased. Psychology, formerly defined and generally 
regarded as the science of mind or soul, has, in recent 
ventures, been characterized rather as the science of 
mental activities, or, later still, as the science of the 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 241 

phenomena of consciousness. Mr. Sully says " its aim 
is to give an account of the phenomena of developed 
consciousness as it manifests itself in man." Professor 
James speaks of it as " the science of mental life, both 
of its phenomena and their conditions." Mr, Dewey 
defines it as " the science of the facts or phenomena of 
self." Mr. Bascom, in his science of mind, says: 
" States of brain at all times affect and sometimes con- 
trol states of mind." Dr. Jastrow affirms that " psy- 
chology studies the recognized and explicable phases of 
mental phenomena." 

In part the change is one of nomenclature ; in 
part it is a shifting of the point of view. As the 
subject becomes less speculative and more scientific 
the emphasis is transferred from a consideration of 
the nature of the mind, or the self, or the ego, to 
the conditioned states of consciousness or to their 
changes. As certain of the physiological functions are 
found to " affect or control these states or changes," 
increasing attention is given to a study of the bodily 
conditions that underlie or accompany, or follow, the 
activities called mental. The phenomena of the two 
sets are altogether different, but related, and related 
in such way that, as even Spencer says,* in psychol- 
ogy, " the thing contemplated is not the connection be- 
tween the internal phenomena, nor is it the connection 
between the external phenomena, but it is the connec- 
tion between the two connections." This physiological 
concomitant is found chiefly among the phenomena of 

*H. Spencer. "Principles of Psychology," i, p. 132. 



242 Science of Education 

the nervous system and contributes certain data for the 
science of education. 

(1) Primarily the body must be considered the 
source of nervous, and so mental, energy. Its condi- 
tions of soundness and vigor react upon the mind. 
" Mens Sana habitat in corpore sano,^' as currently 
employed, is only another form for the expression: 
" The sounder the body, the sounder the mind." And 
the plea for physical exercise, gymnasium training, 
calisthenics, right hygienic school and home conditions, 
and the movements in the great cities for free lunches 
to school children in certain sections, and for play- 
grounds and vacation schools, are all primarily in the 
interest of clearer thinking and more natural growth; 
possiblj^ of clearer thinking and better living because 
of more natural growth. In a condition of abounding 
energy the mind acts under the push of an aggressive 
inertia. It works freely, and easily, and effectively. 
The store of nervous force has a " head " of gravity 
that reinforces personal effort. A badly nourished or 
over-mechanized nervous system easily balks at dicta- 
tion or difficulty. Those interested in schooling are 
primarily concerned to put pupils into the most respon- 
sive vigorous physical condition, assured that the mind, 
in all its varied functions, will share in the richer 
returns of this fertile life. 

Along with a recognition of this relation many cir- 
cumstances otherwise unnoticed become important to 
the teacher. Conditions of climate and weather, tem- 
perature, food, and air affect the mind through the 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 243 

body. Discomforts arising from any of these disturb 
all persons more or less, and children particularly. A 
school-room too warm or too cold, or supplied with 
vitiated air, or furnished with seating of unfit size 
or . arrangement, quickly disturbs the mental life of 
both pupils and teacher. So too much exercise or too 
little, or exercise of an unwise character^ or such as 
brings into use certain parts of the body only, neglect- 
ing others, has a like evil effect. 

Notice also should be taken of the depressing influence 
of the invalid or decrepit body upon the mind, and the 
subordination of many intellectual interests during peri- 
ods of rapid physical growth. This latter is particularly 
true of the child upon the approach to the adolescent 
period. Many of the organs are undergoing important 
changes. The framework tissues claim an increase of 
blood. Along with the restlessness of mind at this 
period there is a conditioning restlessness of body. 
There is a passion for athletics, and physical achieve- 
ment, and venture. Appetite changes. " Both parts 
and powers," says Dr. Hall, " develop disproportion- 
ately, so that cohesion is weakened and physical unity 
impaired." Great physical changes take place in the 
circulation, and a consequent increase in weight and 
size. The constructive metabolism, a very natural 
physical process of the normal body, introduces for the 
period an element of disturbance into all neural reac- 
tions. An accompaniment, if not a result of it all, is 
an arrest of mental efiiciency and persistence, or at 
least a diversion, of these into unfamiliar channels. 



244 Science of Education 

Precocious development of the physical functions pecul- 
iar to this age often leads to temporary weakening and 
always to a disturbance of the mental functions. As 
set over against all of these bodily puUings and pusli- 
ings, there must not be ignored the mental effect of an 
abundant physical energy that, free from inordinate 
stimulation, extends itself naturally, not precociously, 
and reinforces the mental reactions by a sound body. 

Let it be granted, then, that an effective mental life 
requires the support of a proportioned and wholesome 
physical energy. That this, " a sound mental life," is 
the ultimate purpose of all directed physical training. 
That, with the young especially, no effective mental 
work can be expected of pupils acting under phys- 
ical discomfort. That the adolescent period calls for 
much patient, far-seeing concession on the part of the 
teacher. 

(2) In another and important sense the body is de- 
pendent upon, and is the servant of, the mind. This is 
most obvious in the general management of the body, in 
walliing, grasping, talking, and in the use one makes 
of the physical senses, etc. The most expert automa- 
tism of the fingers, and the organs of speech, and 
vision, and touch, has behind it a persistent and more 
or less purposeful mental effort. Each may be again 
translated into mental doing. Each has meaning to 
the degree that it reflects such doing and permits this 
retranslation upon occasion. This means that one sees 
what one wills to see or has fitted himself to see. All 
perception involves thinking; is rich to the extent that 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 245 

it uses thinking; is fiiiitless as it stops short. The 
presence of the understanding reveals itself in all 
manipulations that involve skill. Children, with all 
their activity, their restless, ceaseless movement, are 
clumsy in delicate fingering or bodily management. 
Each becomes skilful as it has been thoughtful, and may 
be made thoughtful again. Hearing and touch, not less 
than seeing, become discriminating as they involve or 
have involved thinking as a factor in their training. 
In walking or sitting the general grace of the body is 
the measure of the amount of mind in it. l^othing is 
clearer to the reflective observer than that physical 
beauty of the face and person is, in the final analysis, 
a product of the mind's dominance. Othenvise plain 
features are given a unity of meaning and attractive 
significance by the intelligent and sincere intent of the 
mind. " Pretty is as pretty does," is only a common- 
place statement of a common-sense thought, sound as 
it is common, that real beauty is more than "skin deep," 
and is a revelation in form and feature and carriage 
of the mind's purity and ingenuousness behind. 

It has already been hinted that all forms of phys- 
ical training look, on one side, to clearer thinking. 
In another sense, a very real purpose of all such train- 
ing is to give the mind the best possible instrument 
of expression. One characteristic of a liberally edu- 
cated man, in the phrase of Professor Huxley, quoted, 
is that he shall have been so " trained in his youth that 
his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with 
ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it 



246 Science of Education 

is capable of." * That is wise training for the body 
which holds it responsible for all the mind's accuracy. 
^Neatness of school work, of dress and manners, of 
movement and speech, facility in manipulation and 
docility of demeanor, are not ends in themselves, but 
means toward a coveted mental acumen and care, and 
an aid to the mind's adequate utterance. 

As corollaries of the foregoing characterization of 
the mind as actively reacting upon the body the fol- 
lowing principles are derived : 

Early mechanize in the body right habits of doing 
and behavior, that it may become the ready and efficient 
servant of the mind. Thoughtful, discriminating sense- 
perception is the only fruitful sense-perception. The 
coarser muscular movements should be recognized as 
preceding the finer and more complex ones. The child's 
bodily movements must be an expression of the child's 
own discrimination. 

(3) Another important relation existing between the 
body and the mind is that which is known as disposition 
or temperament. This is not easily defined or classified 
accurately, and yet it betokens a mutual dependence 
that is generally recognized. Psychologists of all 
schools and all times have given it place in their sys- 
tems. It is even more important in a pedagogical 
than in a scientific sense, perhaps. It is a condition- 
ing element in almost every act of teaching. As a 
" natural disposition," it constitutes a differentiating 
factor among individuals. Ladd describes it as " any 

* Huxley. " Science and Education," p. 86. 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 247 

marked type of mental constitution and development 
which seems due to inherited characteristics of the bod- 
ily organism " ; and he says : * " Such disposition con- 
stitutes a predominating disposition to feel, think, and 
act in certain forms, rather than others, among the 
many that are conceivable. The conviction that the 
disposition of the individual is innate and inherited, 
rather than the result of training or environment, is 
doubtless due to the fact that it appears with consid- 
erable strength in childhood, and generally maintains 
itself under great alterations of circumstances, and 
against effort, to the close of life." Under a study of 
" the relations of mental action," Bascom f says that, 
" as the body is at once the medium by which the im- 
pressions reach the mind, the source whence the strength 
for their consideration is secured, and the instrument 
by which its . . . conclusions are expressed, the 
importance of the physical conditions of mental activity 
cannot easily be overstated nor be too carefully inquired 
into " ; and elsewhere adds that, as " the nutritive and 
nervous systems are most intimately associated with 
the mind, . . . the different temperaments cause 
essentially the same faculties to exhibit very different 
degrees of force." 

Herbart % also speaks of " this original peculiarity 
— so-called temperament " — as explainable only " by 

*Ladd. " Elements of Physiological Psychology," p. 574. 
f Bascom. "Science of Mind," p. 426. 

X Herbart. " Text-Book in Psychology," p. 100. Transl. by Marga- 
ret K. Smith, 



248 Science of Education 

pliysiological predisposition in regard to feelings and 
emotions." On the whole, modern science, not less 
than the traditional philosophy, recognizes the existence 
of such predispositions and their influence in individual 
development and experience. One writer * co-ordinates 
the " common characteristics of temperament " with 
common characteristics of species, race, family, nations, 
and sex, including all of these among " general physical 
inheritances " ; affirming that " peculiar arrangements 
of the structure and functions of the muscular, vascular, 
digestive, nervous, and other sets of organs, secure 
permanent traits in human character." Almost uni- 
versally the doctrine implies the existence of a perma- 
nent factor or condition which neither age, nor charac- 
ter, nor culture can greatly change. The primary 
mental characteristic seems to he the individual varia- 
tions in emotional susceptibility; i.e., difference as to 
(a) intensity and (&) duration of the emotion; also 
differences in the stimulus needed to arouse a feeling. 
" The greater the mind's wakefulness to impressions," 
says Professor Ladd,f " the greater, also, its suscepti- 
bility to the feelings of pleasure and pain incident to 
the impressions." 

From the earliest recognition of " temperaments " 
there has been a remarkable unanimity in the general 
classification, along with absurd differences as to their 
origin and physiological meanings. Ladd % quotes 

* Thompson. "A System of Psychology," i, p. 393. 
fLadd. " Elements of Physiological Psychology," p. 575. 
J Ladd. "Elements of Physiological Psychology," p. 576. 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 249 

from Wundt,* approvingly, to the effect that the famil- 
iar " fourfold division of the temperaments is correct, 
because, in the case of every individual, there must be 
a certain combination of the two factors of strength 
and speed (duration and intensity) in all change Avhich 
goes on in the mental movements. The various affec- 
tions of the mind are therefore classifiable as either 
strong and quick, or strong and slow, or else as weak and 
quick, or weak and slow." The resulting relations he 
tabulates as follows : 

STRONG WEAK 

Quick Choleric Sanguine 

Slow Melancholic Phlegmatic 

The names used are no longer significant in the same 
sense as given by Galen, to whom science owes the 
original classification, but they are veiy generally used 
in lieu of better ones. The choleric is often called the 
mercurial temperament, as the sanguine is often de- 
scribed as the jovial. The former is opposed to the 
phlegmatic, as the latter is to the melancholic. The 
choleric is mercurial, as being active and full of vigor. 
It stands for the maximum of both strength and quick- 
ness. The disposition is energetic, self-reliant, and 
determined. The attitude is objective and executive. 
The will being uppenuost, it represents an individual 
of affairs. The reactions may be slower than in the 
sanguine, but more enduring. It hence means, nor- 
mally, more steadiness of character. Sometimes the 

* Wundt, " Physiologische Psychologie," ii, p. 345. 



250 Science of Education 

receptivity appears one-sided, along with great energy 
in some particular direction, even into a narrowing 
bias, with maybe great obstinacy. On the side of 
readiness of reaction this temperament is allied with 
the sanguine; on the side of strength, or endurance, 
with the melancholic. The form known as melancholic 
is now, perhaps, more generally named sentimental, 
sometimes poetic. The reactions are slow, but the feel- 
ings persistent. Here, the feelings are uppermost. 
There is a marked tendency toward subjectivity. There 
is little excitability, but great intensity. The imag- 
ination is likely to be strong. It is accompanied with 
a love of the artistic, of nature, of poetry and music. 
There is more or less decided indifference to practical 
affairs and to mere matters of fact. If possessed in an 
abnormal degree, the disposition may manifest itself 
in a form of indolence or of dreamy contentment. 

The sanguine disposition is jovial, merry, gay. The 
feelings are ardent, often passionate. Such person, 
if religious, will be jealous; if an orator, fervid, even 
fiery; if wronged, fierce; if sympathetic, ardently 
affectionate. Along with more or less impetuosity, 
there goes a hopeful, optimistic spirit. Very sensitive 
to external stimuli, the feelings are not likely to be 
deeply aroused. The character, while warm and im- 
pressionable, is often changeable. This temperament 
is generally characteristic of children and of the un- 
schooled, and possesses great advantages in the acquisi- 
tive stages of culture. The mind is alert, irritable (in 
the psychological sense), responsive, easily aroused. 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 251 

On the side of endurance this temperament is closely 
related to the phlegmatic, but it is more prompt to 
respond to stimulus than is the sentimental. In the 
older classifications the latter was the " full-blooded " 
character, sometimes called saturnine and lymphatic, 
or dull and grave. The response to excitants is slow; 
the feelings are in abeyance. The will is uppermost, 
but lacking in force or purposed urgency. It is patient, 
persistent, self-reliant, but generally heavy and some- 
times torpid, even sluggish. It conduces to quiet, 
regular habits, self-control, and a general balance of 
faculties that is often very efficient, but comparatively 
lagging and out-of-step. It stands for the minimum 
of both strength and speed. 

In general, childhood is sanguine; youth, choleric; 
and maturity, melancholic or phlegmatic. Occasionally 
youth manifests the melancholic or poetic temperament. 
During early adolescence an introspective bias is not 
uncommon. While women are more likely to betray 
this same temperament or the sanguine, men are more 
choleric or phlegmatic. Mr. Bascom,* after noting 
that the nutritive and nervous systems are most inti- 
mately associated with the mind, adds that " great 
impressibility and power in the neiwous organization ; 
a preponderance of the nutritive functions, giving a 
full animal life ; nervous power well balanced, and well 
sustained by the nutritive system, constitute the ner- 
vous, phlegmatic, and sanguine temperaments, which 
greatly modify the measure, hopefulness, and satisfao- 
* Bascom. " Science of Mind," p. 426. 



252 Science of Education 

tion of intellectual efforts, even when the natural en- 
dowments of mind are nearly the same." 

The racial bearings of this question will be consid- 
ered elsewhere; it is in place here to say only that the 
English are a fair type of the choleric temperament 
(combined often with the phlegmatic) ; the French, of 
the sanguine ; the Dutch, of the phlegmatic proper, and 
the Japanese, of the sentimental or poetic. In general 
it may be added that the Latin races are either san- 
guine or sentimental; the Teutonic, phlegmatic or chol- 
eric. In both individuals and races there are numerous 
admixtures of these various dispositions, and any effort 
to interpret the character in particular is greatly com- 
plicated by this fact. Nevertheless, in most cases of 
individuals a measurable predominance of one or 
another type form will be found apparent. 

Certain pedagogical observations follow as reason- 
able inferences from these paragraphs. Primarily it 
should be kept in mind that individual temperament 
is fundamental, and conditions both learning and doing. 
For acquisition, the choleric and sanguine reveal the 
most, and most helpful, initiative ; for persistent effort 
and original achievement, the choleric and lymphatic. 
Each temperament responds to stimulus differently 
and calls for its own peculiar consideration. The 
sanguine makes difficult the fixing of a habit of steady 
effort; the phlegmatic, once aroused, has its own im- 
petus; the sentimental responds most readily to sub- 
jective ideas. Each calls for its own special corrective 
incentives. Each in its best estate is efficient, and, in 



The Physiological Relations of Mind 253 

its own sphere, to be respected; each, has made its own 
characteristic contribution to the progress and achieve- 
ment of the race. One lends itself readily to ideals, 
one to reflection, others to achievement and a stable 
life. It is a matter of common recognition that the 
work of the world has been done bj the steady, persist- 
ent, sometimes plodding, but vigorous men and women ; 
though it will not do to ignore the sensuous, the im- 
pulsive, the idealistic. 

]!^aturally, prescriptive instruction appeals to the 
several classes differently, and, for the best results, 
should be correspondingly modified. This is the pri- 
mary ground for adjustments of occupation and train- 
ing to personal efficiency. Similarly a fixed conven- 
tional order in society or in the schools is variously 
interpreted and unequally conformed to by the several 
temperaments; and, in the growing child, and espe- 
cially the pupil, calls for reasonable allowance. It 
has been said that " the sanguine and sentimental 
temperaments will give few or no difficulties in disci- 
pline. Treatment that is both firm and kind is 
required. The choleric and lymphatic temperaments 
need careful handling and are those most injured by 
injudicious teachers." * 

* Dexter and Garlick. "Psychology in the School-room," p. 344. 



CHAPTER XVm 
THE SPEQAL SENSES 

(4) Once more, in a study of the physiological rela- 
tions of the mind^ consideration must be had of the 
special senses, as the immediate physical conditions of 
experience. 

It is not by any means recent, the recognition that 
the matter of experience is derived through the senses 
and rests upon a physical substratum in the bodily or- 
ganism. Locke only gave striking expression to a com- 
mon notion in his phrase: " There is nothing in the in- 
tellect that was not before in the sense." But the em- 
phasis which both philosophy and psychology currently 
give to this relation is new. Mr. Sully says:* "Our 
knowledge of the way in which mental activity is con- 
nected with the bodily life has been greatly advanced 
by the recent development of the biological sciences, 
and more particularly neurology, or the science of the 
normal functions and functional disturbances, of the 
nervous system. ... A great deal of new and 
valuable information has been acquired quite recently 
respecting the nervous conditions of mental activity, 
and we are now able to conclude with a high degree of 
probability that every psychical process or psychosis 

* Sully. " The Human Mind," i, pp. 4, 6. 
254 



The Special Senses 255 

has its correlative nervous process or neurosis." " Out 
of the stuff of sensations," says Dr. Dewey,* " and upon 
them as data are built both the world as known and 
the self as existing. The existence of sensation is 
equally necessary on both subjective and objective sides. 
Without it the self would remain forever unrealized, 
a mere bundle of capacities, and the world would re- 
main forever unidealized or unknown, a mere blank." 
Between thinking that is rooted in clear perception and 
mere conceptual thinking there is all the difference, says 
Professor James, between " knowing things and knowing 
about things." All knowledge, even of the higher 
forms, as reasoning and imagining, sometimes re- 
motely, but positively and surely, takes its rise in the 
senses. No abstract work of the mind can be done 
until the senses have supplied the necessary materials. 

The statement must obviously hold good for all " na- 
ture studies," the physical sciences, and material achieve- 
ments. Here every sense is brought into requisition. 
The primary tools of the mind in the laboratory are 
the senses. Through them, the understanding is acquis- 
itive and discerning. Upon their deliverances the mind 
finds its only reactions. But it is equally true of the 
language studies; hearing, sight, and the motor senses 
are all involved. As an instrument of expression and 
the means of interpreting expression, hearing ranks very 
high. The raw material of experience as to symbols is 
sense-derived. It will be seen, then, to be equally true 
of the mathematical sciences as it is obviously true of 
* Dewey. " Psychology," p. 46. 



256 Science of Education 

historical and social relations. Through hearing and 
seeing the sense is a primary agent of all social inter- 
course, both immediate and remote; not in art, music 
and speech alone, but in industrial, ceremonial and con- 
ventional orders. " The sum of our perceptions forms 
the circle of our sense experience, and at the same time, 
the material which conditions all the higher activities 
of the soul." * 

The several senses make their respective and fairly 
distinct but intermingled contributions to experience; 
some bringing relatively little, others much; some, that 
of a high intellectual order, others low; but each ac- 
cording to its constitution. To the traditional " five 
senses " modern science has, by pretty general consent, 
added as a sixth the muscular sense ; sometimes, also, a 
seventh, the vital sense. Arranged in order, they may 
be named the vital sense, smell, taste; muscular sense, 
touch, hearing, sight. The first gives sensations from 
which come perce23tions of organic life ; such are hunger, 
thirst, repletion, respiration, etc. The intellectual 
character of these sensations is unimportant. Taste 
and smell are known as the chemical senses, and are 
concerned with nourishing and breathing, through spe- 
cial organs. The sensations of taste, smell and tem- 
perature are variable and correspondingly untrust- 
worthy. They are regarded as " coarse senses " ; sight 
and hearing giving the finer discriminations. The 
former are of little importance as knowledge-giving 
senses; scent, odor, perfume, fragrance, redolence, 

* Lindner. "Empirical Psychology," p. 64. Trans, by De Garmo. 



The Special Senses 257 

aroma, stench, fetor are representative terms used to 
describe the sensations concerned with smell. Halleck, 
however, in his " Education of the Central Nervous 
System" (pp. 111-116), quotes freely from Shake- 
speare, Milton, Gray, and Keats, " to show that, no 
matter what commonplace minds may think to the con- 
trary, [these authors] thought odor images worthy to 
be used in their most noble and beautiful passages." 
From the sense of taste come sensations of flavor — as 
sweet, sour, bitter, saline, alkahne, astringent. 

Tactual and muscular sensations are primary and 
universal. Most modern, as well as earlier, psycholo- 
gists quote Democritus as holding that all of the more 
specialized senses are modifications of this one of 
touch.* The sensations of touch are more definite than 
those of other senses just described, and give corre- 
spondingly more and more reliable knowledge. Dr. 
Porter says : f " The sense of touch is the most positive 
of all the senses, and, in many respects, is worthy to be 
called the leading sense." From this sense are derived 
sensations of one's own body, and its parts and move- 
ments; other bodies; surfaces, surface characters — as 
rough and smooth, hard and soft, moist and dry ; solids, 
their parts and relations. For some of these, and for 
other related experiences, touch is reinforced by the 
muscular sense and by sight. In connection with sight, 
active touch becomes the experimental sense, using 
tools and apparatus and instruments — microscopes, tel- 

* See " Spencer's Principles of Psychology," i, pp. 304, 305. 
t " The Human Intellect," p. 151. 



258 Science of Education 

escopes, balances, measures, etc. Says Dr. Porter:* 
" It ought not to surprise us to learn that the sense of 
touch furnishes most of the terms for the intellectual 
arts and states. Sight itself is indebted to touch for 
many of its terms. We tahe or apprehend a meaning; 
we hold an opinion; we comprehend or grasp a train of 
thought or a course of reasoning; we accept a propo- 
sition." As a knowledge-giving sense, the chief value 
of touch is in its alliances with the other senses, es- 
pecially the muscular sense and vision. But most 
others must depend upon it, also, for assistance or con- 
firmation. Accompanying all exercise of active touch 
are the muscular sensations also. Hence are taken sen- 
sations of weight and pressure, movement, direction and 
distance, form, size (in combination with touch and 
sight), resistance and strain, etc. 

Sensations in hearing readily classify themselves as 
of two kinds: tones and noises. In common experi- 
ence the two are often fused. Even in the most per- 
fect musical instiniment few tones are " pure " ; and 
in the so-called " noises " there may often b© dis- 
tinguished accented or modulated sounds that have the 
character of tones. This is particularly true of articu- 
late sounds, the ocean's roar, the massed noise of a great 
city, the clatter of a train, the vsdnd through a forest, 
the noise of running water, the rumble of a factory. 
Unlike vision, which is a qualitatively simple sense, 
hearing is an " analyzing " sense. This appears in its 
immediate recognition of the time element, because 

♦ " The Human Intellect," p. 152. 



The Special Senses 259 

of which it busies itself with occurrences — motion, 
change, life, etc. 

Unlike all of the other senses, also — even sight — 
hearing reveals a well-developed scale of sensation. 
The scale of colors for the eye is in no sense either 
so regular or so well integrated as is the musical 
scale. This latter is described technically as a " con- 
tinuum " ; it is unitary, complete, integral. Upon these 
discriminations musical systems rest ; and from their 
combinations come tunes, melodies, harmonies, con- 
cords, choruses, etc. Articulateness in language, mod- 
ulations, accent, movement, emphasis, inflections and 
much of the attractiveness of oratory, not less than 
song, arise from the fine discriminations of this sense. 

" Of all the senses, hearing is said to be the richest 
in the variety of sensations it furnishes. The ear can 
discriminate far more accurately than the human voice 
can execute." Hearing gives little knowledge of space 
— either direction or location. But " the delicate and 
far-reaching discrimination of quality, aided by the 
fine discrimination of duration, enables the ear to ac- 
quire a good deal of exact information, as well as to 
gain a considerable amount of refined pleasure. The 
delight of music sums up the chief part of the latter." * 
However, the auditor)' images employed in the great 
literatures, in story and in common speech, cannot 
rightly be ignored, as adding to the attractions and 
pleasures and comforts of language masterpieces among 
the fine arts. Of the more exact information, hearing 
* Sully. " The Human Mind," ii, p. 113. 



260 Science of Education 

is responsible for large contributions througli speech, 
direct instruction, lectures, sermons, home and social 
intercourse, etc. Among sensory images in the mind, 
those of the auditory type seem to be far less common 
than of the visual. Galton, in his " Inquiries into 
Human Faculty," * discusses images, mental imagery 
and visionaries, through two chapters, without mention 
of auditory images, except, perhaps, where he digresses 
to characterize the " daimon of Socrates as an audible, 
not a visual appearance." Of the auditory type are 
those writers who, in their composing, have hearers, 
not readers, in mind ; musicians who play " by ear " 
rather than by note; most readers, effective preachers 
and jury lawyers; teachers, as teachers, who have the 
recitation in mind. The auditive pupil studying, com- 
ing to a difficulty in his book lesson, is likely to go 
through the motions of reading it aloud. But few of 
these impulses carry images with them. In the born 
orator and musician they are most likely to do so. 

Learning by hearing is primitive and generic; rela- 
tively far more prominent in the early experience of the 
race than now. " For untold barbaric ages man had ob- 
tained, through the medium of the ear, almost all the 
knowledge that came to him second-hand. The news- 
paper and the book did not exist for him to interpret 
their meaning by the eye." f And even to-day among 
visualists the eye-bom images are often given vivid- 
ness through the influence of hearing. 

* Pages 83-114 and 155-177. 

t Halleck. " The Education of the Central Nervoua System," p. 62. 



The Special Senses 261 

Of all the senses, the sensations of sight are given 
first place in respect to refinement and definiteness. 
" The eye has always ranked/' says Dr. Porter,* " as 
the noblest of the senses " : its superiority being due in 
part to " the unobtrusive delicacy of its sensations." 
However, at its best even, the eye, for the discrimina- 
tion of many qualities and especially as concerns the 
conception of space relations, " needs the tutorship of 
the touch." No other sense is responsible for so many 
acquired perceptions. It shares its insights with every 
other sense and appropriates theirs in return. More or 
less directly, we depend upon this sense for our appre- 
hension of light in general, the scale of colors and their 
innumerable modifications ; of lustre and dulness, light 
and shade, perspective; visible movement, form, appar- 
ent size, direction and extension. It sustains particu- 
larly close relations w^ith the sense of touch, " first 
learning from the hand what the hand has to teach, 
then guiding it." In all forms of art, whether fine or 
industrial art, it is rich in dictation for the hand's exe- 
cution. It is resourceful and interpretative. " Very 
early," says Ladd,f " in the development of a normal ex- 
perience, the eye comes to be the leader and critic of 
the discriminations connected with the muscular and 
tactual sensations." It is the sense of breadth and cath- 
olicity. " The noblest part in the disclosure of the ex- 
ternal world," says Lindner,:}: " belongs indisputably to 
the sense of sight, which gives rise to nine-tenths of all 

♦Porter. "The Human Intellect," p. 158. 

f Ladd. " Elements of Physiological Psychology," pp.417. 418 

I "Empirical Psychology " (trans.), p. 62. 



262 Science of Education 

sense-perceptions. Its impressions are so distingulslied 
above the others in clearness and distinctness that lan- 
guage borrows its figures for the perfection of knowl- 
edge from this sense (idea, insight, evidence, intuition), 
and the perceptions arising from other senses must, for 
the sake of scientific comparison, be reduced to optical 
perceptions ; as, for example, temperatures, to the length 
of a tube of quicksilver; difference in weight, to the 
graduation on the arm of the scales, etc." Better than 
most of the other senses, also, the eye is able to control 
its impressions. Not only what we know and what 
may be known, but what we wish to know has a de- 
cisive influence often on what we see. The sense is 
selective and assimilative. 

The images that most enrich the mind are of the 
visual type. This has already been implied in the pre- 
ceding paragraph. Francis Galton, about twenty years 
ago, undertook in an original way to study mental 
imagery, chiefly of the visual type, and published his 
conclusions,* with important inquiries, as has been 
mentioned on a former page. Among his conclusions 
are the following: that men of science, as a class, have 
feeble powers of visual representation; that the highest 
minds are probably those in which the power is not lost, 
but subordinated, and is ready for use on suitable occa- 
sions; that, through other modes of conception, chiefly 
connected with an incipient motor sense, men who de- 
clare themselves entirely deficient in the power of seeing 
mental pictures may, nevertheless, give life-like de- 

* " Inquiries into Human Faculty," pp. 83-177. 



The Special Senses 263 

scriptions of what they have seen, and otherwise express 
themselves as if they were gifted with a vivid imagina- 
tion; that the power of visualizing is higher in women 
than men, and in boys than in adults ; that language and 
book learning tend to dull the power ; and that it is prob- 
ably a natural gift. In practical ways it manifests 
itself in the dramatic sense ; in the easy mastery of cere- 
monials and manceuvres; in the skill of the artist, the 
expert story-teller, the inventive mechanic, and in the 
pioneer in ideas generally. Without doubt one's vis- 
ualizing power, for one order of images or another, may 
be measurably improved, and much to the advantage 
of the individual and for his enjoyment. 

From the several characterizations of the senses and 
their products in experience, certain observations natu- 
rally follow as bearing, more or less directly, upon edu- 
cational doctrine or practice, or both. 

The nature of education requires that each of the 
special senses, not less than other functions, be culti- 
vated in proportion to its uses in mental development 
The want of a single sense, as of one born blind or deaf, 
means a loss of experience of one whole order of ideas. 
In the same way and to a corresponding degree, any 
one of the senses left uncultivated, or comparatively so, 
imposes a limit, an artificial and unnecessary limit to 
subsequent knowledge and interests — not of the order 
of that sense only, but of related senses that are weaker 
because of its weak support. And if the sense neg- 
lected be sight or hearing or touch — senses which nat- 
urally contribute so much to personal experience — the 



264 Science of Education 

injury is all tlie greater. It needs no argument to stow 
that in most schooling the last of these is practically 
ignored, and too often the second. Fortunately, the 
pupil in his play and neighborhood foraging often takes 
the matter into his own hands and works out a motor 
and tactile training for himself. So important is ex- 
perience to the growing person that no avenue to the 
mind should be even partially obstructed. Every day, 
and frequently, short, sharp, attentive, discriminative 
exercise of each sense upon interesting, important 
matter would accomplish much. The several senses, 
not less than judgment and thinking, are entitled to 
share in the discipline of the school. The result would 
be a fund of sensuous richness and beauty, and the tools 
of a higher efficiency for subsequent years. This finer 
sense power is a mark of developed races and individ- 
uals. It means clearer pictures of the imagination, 
more resourceful thinking, and cogent reasoning. It 
must not be forgotten that " while," as Professor James 
puts it, " part of what we perceive comes through our 
senses from the object before us, another part always 
comes out of our own head." The reactions of the mind 
are measured by the kind and amount of material fur- 
nished by the senses. Whatever trains them enriches 
the mind in the higher functions. 

The real nurture of the several senses is wholesome 
in all its mental reactions. Herbert Spencer pointed 
out * very clearly that " the progress of life and in- 
telligence is, under one of its aspects, an extension of 

* Spencer. " Principles of Psychology," i, p. 318. 



The Special Senses 265 

tte space through which the correspondence between 
the organism and its environment reaches, and that 
successive stages in the development of each sense im- 
ply successive enlargements of this sj)here of space. 
Rationality assists in carrying this enlargement still 
farther." A like meaning may be found in Dr. Har- 
ris's statement that, viewed in one way, " education 
looks to making for the individual every there a here, 
and every then a now." Education of the sort men- 
tioned means an extension of the horizon of one's avail- 
able natural and human environment. 

Then there is the most urgent necessity for more 
careful and systematic and far-seeing motor training. 
As it begins in movement, so sensation tends to pass into 
movement, and " the foundation for motor develop- 
ment lies in sensory training." 

Once more, mental activity becomes more difficult 
as it departs from the activity of the senses. This de- 
termines instruction to begin with: things before 
names; the individual before the general; the local be- 
fore the distant ; the recent before the old ; the common 
before the strange; and the vernacular before a foreign 
language. It means, in other words and in a single 
phrase, that first steps are to be with what lies nearest 
to the child's experience. This may mean interest in 
the life of the " Seven Little Sisters," or of the girl 
across the street. It is only the more available in any 
case, as it lies nearest the child's accumulated sense 
experience. 



CHAPTER XIX 
PSYCHOLOGY 

Educational science will find other materials in a 
study of the mind, i.e., in psychology. It is not the 
present purpose, nor is there any occasion here, to pre- 
sent in systematic order or completeness even the es- 
sentials of psychology as a science. In the present study 
these are taken for granted. In constructing or inter- 
preting a science of education there is presupposed an 
acquaintance with imjDortant phenomena of mind, its 
states and activities, and the processes of their change, 
and the organization of them into a science; and, in 
particular, those phenomena that have to do with the 
growth of mind and the conditions of its maturing. It 
is the study of mind so considered to which the science 
of education is indebted for the group of principles now 
undertaken. 

(1) Of primary importance is an acquaintance with 
mental capacities. Sir William Hamilton * limits the 
term capacity to the mere passive affections of the 
mind. He says, " Its primary signification, ... as 
well as its employment, favors tliis usage." Power he 
uses as both active and passive; faculty naming the 

* " Metaphysics," p. 123. 
266 



Psychology 267 

active, and capacity the passive form. Certainly, in 
both the older and more recent psychologies, it is recog- 
nized that along with a capacity for receiving and ap- 
propriating experience, there goes a positive power of 
reacting — aggressive, forceful, conditioning. As Pro- 
fessor Ladd * phrases it: " In spite of objections from 
the physiological point of view, the popular assvmiption 
[of a real, non-material, permanent being, a unity in 
some unique sense], when freed from its crudities, and 
interpreted intelligently, may be shown to be the only 
one compatible with tlie facts of observation." Even 
Herbert Spencer,f who defines mind " as known to the 
possessor of it, as a circumscribed aggregate of activi- 
ties," says : " The cohesion of these activities, one with 
another, throughout the aggregate, compels the postu- 
lation of something of which they are the activities." 
From whatever point of view, mind must be thought of 
as a power, fitted to receive and appropriate experiences, 
and an active, affirmative energy, selective and effort- 
making. These two characteristics have already been 
assumed in speaking of the mutual interactions of mind 
and environment, and need not be further elaborated 
here. A recognition of both, however, is fundamental 
in describing or interpreting the process known as edu- 
cation. 

In this mind, there are no inborn original possessions. 
The qualities of mind are inherited; power as capacity 
and energy; tendencies to feel, to know, and to do; 

* Ladd. " Elements of Physiological Psychology," p. 597. 
f Spencer. " Principles of Psychology," i, p. 159. 



268 Science of Education 

tendencies to discriminate, reflect and imagine; tenden- 
cies to connect events causally ; tendencies to co-ordinate 
tlie senses; capacity for mental development. But all 
of these are rather characteristic of the mind of the 
species than of the individual. " In animals," says Pro- 
fessor James,* " fixed habit is the essential and charac- 
teristic law of nervous action. The brain grows to the 
exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the 
inheritance of these modes we call instincts. But in 
man the negation of fixed modes is the essential char- 
acteristic. He owes his whole pre-eminence as a rea- 
soner, his whole human quality of intellect, we may 
say, to the facility with which a given mode of thought 
in him may suddenly be broken up into elements which 
recombine anew. Only at the price of inheriting no 
instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel 
case by the fresh discovery by his reason of novel prin- 
ciples. He is, pa?^ excellence, the educable animal." 

Heredity, in other words, is seen in possibilities, not 
in transmitted biases ; in general, not specific character- 
istics. Indeed, inherited tendency is, not infrequently, 
capable of direction into either desirable or undesirable 
development, according as incidental environment or 
positive tuition favors the one or the other. " Inheri- 
tance has a great number of possibilities, and the realiza- 
tion of any one of them may be caused or blocked by 
very slight accidental occurrences." " A man's germ 
inheritance," it has been said, " is his capital, his stock 
in trade. He may foster or spoil it by good ante-birth 

* " Psychology," ii, pp! 367, 368. 



Psychology 269 

acquisitions; liis nurture may increase or waste it. But 
without it he couldn't do business at all, and its nurt- 
ure must decide what sort of business he will do." In- 
herited aptitude is for class, not individual effects; in 
the genius sometimes, for large particular powers. The 
inheritances that are actively specific are chiefly struct- 
ural or functional on the organic side. And these, to- 
gether with the transmitted mental capacity and energj^, 
are far more fixed and persistent than acquired tenden- 
cies or the impulse of education. Mr. Galton asserts: * 
" There is no escape from the conclusion that nature 
[inheritance] prevails enormously over nurture [edu- 
cation] when the differences of nurture do not exceed 
what is commonly found among persons of the same 
rank of society in the same country." But elsewhere in 
the same study this author adds that " those teachings 
that conform to the natural aptitudes of the child leave 
much more enduring marks than others." Individu- 
ality lies along the way of developing these predisposi- 
tions ; and if individuality, then efficiency. 

Whether acquired characteristics in the parents are 
transmissible to their offspring is an open scientific ques- 
tion. The modern discussion dates practically from the 
reading of a paper by Professor Weismann f in 1881 
before a German scientific society. This was followed 
by seven other addresses or monographs subsequently 
published in a volume in 1889, and by four more 
issued as Vol. II, two years afterward, all upon kindred 

* " Inquiries into Human Faculty," p. 241. 

f August Weismann. " The Duration of Life." 



270 Science of Education 

phases of the same topic. They have stimulated among 
scientists and educators discussion of the possibility of 
inheriting acquired traits. Current opinion is yet con- 
siderably divided upon the question. The pedagogical 
implications are important. For so long we have been 
content to believe that by persistent, far-seeing and, if 
need be, compulsory schooling, each generation might 
be assured a beginning well in advance of that of its 
predecessor, that it seems little short of iconoclastic to 
say or to think that the reverse of this is probably the 
truth, and that no acquired traits are transmitted. Mr. 
Sully holds to the traditional belief; Professor James 
against it, and with Weismann and Darwin. Herbert 
Spencer and Mr. Sully and some others are Lamarckian 
in arguing for the persistence — the possible persistence 
of acquired characteristics. 

If the latter view be the correct one, then directed 
education must seek to adapt tuition to the individual 
native aptitude in such way as to utilize the projective 
force of heredity to conserve the new influence : if the 
Weismann theory be established, that accidental varia- 
tion and organic adaptation to environment through 
natural selection are the only means of furthering de- 
velopment, then it only remains (1) to begin the edu- 
cation of the children through wholesome nutrition and 
living, and (2) to surround life by such environment 
as will make the selection of desirable characteristics 
by the organism easy or certain. In either case the 
right early beginning of formal, purposeful education 
becomes important. 



Psychology 271 

In mind we have to do with the primary fact of con- 
sciousness, and consciousness in three forms — not so 
much sensibility, intellect, and will, as of feeling, know- 
ing or thinking, and willing or choosing; not so much 
the function as the functioning. As the scientist does 
not ask what electricity is, but what it does; so the 
psychologists, and especially the educator and teacher, 
will ask of such faculties. What do they do ? How does 
action proceed, and under what conditions? What is 
knowing or remembering or hating or the act of dis- 
crimination or judgment or sympathy or artistic appre- 
ciation? Knowing appears to be the simple act of con- 
sciousness; feeling, kno"\ving that involves some self- 
interest; willing, knowing or choosing with a purpose. 
Knowledge is the universal element; feeling, the indi- 
vidual element; the act of willing, the relating of the 
two in an expression of purposed activity.* The mind 
does not act independently in either of these relations. 
Indeed, the reactions among them are interminably 
complex. In the acti\aties of each order, both of the 
others are present in one degree or another. Seeing 
is reinforced by thinking; memory, by sound pur- 
poses ; the understanding, by clear perceptions ; the 
will, by good judgment. The mind functions as a 
whole; unequally, but in co-operation of part and 
part. 

One phase of this integrity of mental act is character- 
ized by Professor James when he says : f " Conscious- 

* See Dewey. " Psychology, "p. 4. 
f " Psychology," i, p. 239. 



272 Science of Education 

ness does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such 
words as ' chain ' or ' train ' do not describe it fitly, as it 
presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing joint- 
ed ; it flows." He calls it throughout one very interest- 
ing chapter " the stream of thought." Dr. Porter makes 
the same fact clear from his point of view: " The whole 
soul, so far as we are conscious of its operations, acts 
in each of its functions. The identical and undivided 
ego is present, and wholly present, in every one of its 
conscious acts and states. In every act all functions 
conspire to make each in its exercise clear. At least 
this seems to be the natural order, and it is the real 
order until the mind has been perverted by being com- 
pelled to exercise in sections." 

Thinking, feeling and controlling are three aspects 
of mental activity; now one is dominant, now an- 
other. States of mind vary as to the character of 
the prevailing act. It may be chiefly reflection, with 
feeling and will, perception and moral considerations 
in abeyance. It may be markedly emotional, show- 
ing little of either discrimination or control ; or it 
may be mainly active and directive, only incidentally 
self-regarding; unemotional and comparatively un- 
thinking. " Each state of the soul is more conspicu- 
ously and eminently a state of knowledge, or of feel- 
ing, or of will, one of these elements being prevail- 
ing or predominant." * The distinction holds, not 
only for states of mind of the same individual, but for 
the predominant traits of different individuals. One is 
* Porter. " The Human Intellect," p. 43. 



Psychology 273 

managerial and executive, interested in affairs and 
achievements; one, in ideas and ideals; one, prevail- 
ingly responsive to feeling stimuli. 

States of mind vary also as to their different de- 
grees of complexity. This is true for one's states of 
mind for any measurable period, but it also holds true 
as accounting for the unlikeness of states characteriz- 
ing different periods in the individual life. Childhood 
is perceptive and receptive, rather than reflective and 
thoughtful ; impulsive, not controlled ; sensuous in ex- 
perience, not ideal. 

Once more, the facts of psychology as a science are 
practically limited to the field of consciousness. Pro- 
fessor Ladd * defines psychology as " the science which 
has for its primary subject of investigation all the phe- 
nomena of human consciousness " ; and physiological 
psychology as having to do with " the phenomena of 
consciousness from the physiological point of view." 
•By James and Sully and most recent writers on the 
subject the science is similarly defined, but by most of 
them, also, the meaning or content of the term con- 
sciousness is greatly extended ; extended to include " all 
psychical phenomena lying beyond the confines of clear 
consciousness . . . taken as raw material for mind, 
and . . . susceptible ... of being brought into 
the texture of our distinctly conscious life." f All of 
which implies that there are phenomena that may be 
fairly called mental that are little more than the adum- 

* " Elements of Physiological Psychology," pp. 3, 4, 
f SuUy. " The Human Mind," i, p. 76, 



274 Science of Education 

brations of clearly conscious acts, but as clearly belong 
to the field of psychology. 

The chief significance of the matter in the present 
discussion is that whatever the scientists may conclude 
of the relation of these facts, to the teacher this 
fringe of consciousness is an imporant factor in the 
child's education or development. " There is," writes 
Professor Sully, * " a whole aggregate or complex of 
mental phenomena, sensations, impressions, thoughts, 
etc., most of which are obscure, transitory and not 
distinguished. With this wide obscure region of the 
subconscious, there stands contrasted the narrow lumi- 
nous region of the clearly conscious." Here are 
" physical elements which enter into and color the 
conscious state of the time, but which are not dis- 
criminated or distinguished." One author speaks of 
" organic reverberations " underlying such emotions as 
grief, love, etc. ; of " signs of direction " in thinking ; 
of " psychic overtones " and " fringes " of feeling and 
" tediously haunting " conditions of mind, which have 
similar meanings. Some of these are organic effects, 
some are smouldering feelings, others vague wants, 
anon the undiscerned but insinuating and urgent push 
of one's former experiences. To divert this mental en- 
ergy to right ends, and to hold it in wholesome ways of 
acting and at the ready call of conscious purpose, is a 
large part of child training. Example is better than 
precept because the child, without conscious effort and 
without protest, falls into the way of behaving as the 

* " Outlines of Psychology," p. 74. 



Psychology 275 

exemplar behaves. All automatic doing and reflex 
activities are of this class of semiconscious or subcon- 
scious acts. The groping of the mind in memory for 
what it only vaguely recalls is an example of the same. 

In the teaching of the schools, as well as in the 
learning of life, there are two orders of change, each 
complementary to the other, each the opposite of the 
other, and both of interest to the teacher. In the one 
there is a transforming of conscious processes into un- 
conscious ones ; the other, the reverse — the resolving of 
unconscious processes into conscious ones. Walking, 
reading, talking, singing, seeing, writing and similar 
forms of skill and behavior that, in the beginning, were 
intensely conscious acts, must, for the highest personal 
effectiveness, become automatic or chiefly so. In read- 
ing, consciousness of the word-sign must be reduced to 
a minimum ; so of the balance of the body in walking, 
the co-ordination of the organs of speech in talking and 
singing, the adjustments of the eye in seeing, etc. It 
is fortunate that so much of the mind's work may be 
safely left to the automatism of habit and the sensory 
motor and other reflexes. 

On the other hand, directed education has for one of 
its purposes to bring more and more of the mind's expe- 
riences within reach of conscious purposeful critical 
judgment that, upon occasion the mind may be able to 
converge upon its interest all the fund of its past in- 
sights and acquisitions. For effective living and acting 
the grip of the hour must be upon one's accumulation of 
years. The unconscious must be transformable at need 



276 Science of Education 

into the conscious. But there is need of a store of re- 
flexes. Of all that has been learned by any one of us, 
the most is soon forgotten. Of what remains, the largest 
part, if it be thoroughly known as one knows his name, 
or his house number, or the qualities of matter, or hu- 
man nature, is held reflexively and used automatically. 
This is a great convenience, to say the least, that so 
much of the store of one's past experience can be disre- 
garded with the confident assurance, however, that it 
will keep on at its proper work when needed. As a 
garrulous person is sometimes said " to set his mouth 
going and go off and leave it," so in a high and very 
real sense there are many things which the well-trained 
mind may be set to doing, and the self go about its busi- 
ness with newer and possibly more difficult tasks. It is 
a thrifty providence of the organism for doubling its 
force. 

Another characteristic of mind and one that espe- 
cially concerns the teacher is its tendency toward peri- 
odicities. The more important of such are incident (1) 
to one's environment, and (2) the conditions of life de- 
velopment. Of the former there are those consequent 
upon personal and social habits, fatigue and relaxation, 
the succession of day and night, meals, the seasons, and 
the fixed programme of every kind. The latter repre- 
sent stages of development. Both are conditioning of 
activities that may and may not be required or at- 
tempted. Thought is in constant change, and mental 
(nervous) energy is a continuum of unequal or incon- 
stant flow. Each has its periods of rise and fall. M^xi- 



Psychology 277 

ma and minima follow each, other, though not in the na- 
ture of an exact repetend. One high pressure may be 
higher than another, as one low pressure may be lower. 
But the aggregate life is rhythmic, and, while " the 
stream of thought " flows unceasingly, it flows with a 
more or less regular recurrent energy. There are times 
of greater and of less alertness. As these, for any reason, 
recur with something of regularity and assurance, they 
constitute mental periods. 

Moodiness and alternating periods of melancholy 
and subsequent exaltation have the character of broken 
periods. The mind, by being called upon at regu- 
larly recurring times for the same sort of response, 
quickly adjusts itself to expect it, showing a tend- 
ency to repetend doing. The alternation of day and 
night furthers this tendency. The morning hours 
are for most persons the most fruitful mentally; 
the mind is fresher, the will is saner, the feelings are 
less taxed, the thinking is more energetic, the interests 
are more persistent, obedience to rule is easier. All 
this is, perhaps, in part — in large part — because the 
organism is more vigorous from the night's respite. On 
the other hand, habit or other personal reasons may re- 
serve the evenings or the afternoon for the several 
tasks and the mind adjust itself to this routine. It 
more readily performs its tasks in some fairly regulated, 
recurring order, whether self-imposed or artificial. In 
a way, the hours remember their tasks. For this rea- 
son, broken programmes in elementary schools are gen- 
erally to be condemned. Sleep, the meals and vigorous 



278 /Science of Education 

physical exercise constitute diversion of the working 
forces that are important. Before fatigue has been 
reached the activity should be changed. For every in- 
dividual this alternation of exercise and rest is more 
or less constant, varying somewhat also with age — the 
period lengthening from childhood to youth. It is a 
determining factor in the making and administering 
of school programmes. 

Another periodicity of the life is expressed in what 
are generally known as stages of development. These 
are variously distributed through the years, named in 
sundry ways and each given a more or less arbitrary 
prominence by different writers, according to the point 
of view. But the fact that such stages exist is almost 
universally conceded, in theory at least, however much 
the teaching or home practice may disregard them. In- 
fancy, childhood, youth, adolescence and manhood are 
terms that have the sanction of both common and tech- 
nical use. Lange distinguishes between early and later 
childhood, the two periods covering the first ten years of 
life. With MacVicar, childhood begins at six or seven, 
all before that time being accorded to infancy. Laurie 
offers a very similar classification. Of seven classifica- 
tions known to the writer, all agree in ending one period 
and beginning another between the fourteenth and six- 
teenth years. The adjacent periods are differently 
named, but are both described in reasonably uniform 
terms. It is noticeable that five of the seven begin 
their classifications with the child's first years, the other 
two confine their characterizations to the school period. 



Psychology 279 

Five of the seven, also, find the years between ten and 
twelve a transition time. 

But far more important than this effort to fix the 
limits of the several periods is the approximate una- 
nimity as to the essential characteristics of life as they 
appear during the intervening years and at times of 
transition. This paragraph is given to a summary of 
the more important of these traits at several stages. 

For all of the earlier years of childhood before school 
entrance, and for two or three years thereafter, the in- 
tellectual life is very directly dependent upon the senses; 
it is the sense-perception stage; the body is immature, 
but growing; by the age of eight years the brain has 
attained approximately to five-sixths its full size; the 
natural appetites are strong and controlling. The feel- 
ings are transitory and capricious. The temper is plas- 
tic. Language and customs are learned chiefly by imi- 
tation. Habits are easily formed. Nature, environ- 
ment, is the great teacher. There is little persistence, 
and no energy for long-continued effort. 

Following these early years and up to the age of 
twelve or fourteen — the beginning of adolescence — con- 
siderable changes take place, both organic and spir- 
itual. Experience is still chiefly sensuous. Perception 
is reinforced by a strengthening memory. Seeing be- 
gins to take on the character of observing. Present in- 
terests dominate. For this reason the activities that at- 
tract are of play rather than work. Satisfaction is found 
in the accompanying feelings rather than in a distant 
end to be attained. But more complex sports now are de- 



280 Science of Education 

manded to satisfy the growing impulse of tlie mind to 
control tilings. Later in this same period the rougher 
games attract. Both boys and girls want to do things. 
Girls often at this age want to play the milder games 
of boys; these, in their turn, acquire an interest in 
the sports of men. The senses are active, the passions 
strong and but little controlled. Boys engage in per- 
sonal combats; girls in jealousies and cliques. Both 
are easily aroused to anger. They are increasingly in- 
terested in sensational stories, picturesque adventures, 
incidents of travel and the heroisms of physical courage 
and danger and exploits. The imagination, so forceful 
a few years later, is still sensuous but more vivid. It is 
the period of facile and tenacious memory. Facts are 
easily learned, but interests are chiefly spontaneous, 
not selected; attention is neither steady nor controlled. 
The two sexes associate indifferently; social influences 
are strong and decisive. At such age children are 
thoroughly democratic, social distinctions comit for 
little, companionship becomes a necessity, children 
crave it. 

Almost universally it is agreed that danger lies in a 
too early change to the period of youth which follows. 
The prolonging of this period, for even a year or two, 
has a wholesome influence upon the adolescent life, 
both as furnishing richer material in experience and 
as passing on a stabler physical condition of organs and 
their functions. 

Professor Lancaster, of Colorado College, says : ^ 

* "Proceedings of the N. E. A.," 1899, p. 1039. 



Psychology 281 

" Adolescence begins when the primary unthinking life 
of the senses of the child opens np into the broad, sec- 
ondary mental life of meditation, reflection and con- 
struction. . . . Objects and events are seen in their 
intimate relations for the first time. . . . Individu- 
ality is felt in its fulness. Personality enlarges." Pri- 
marily, the body is in a state of transition. Great phys- 
ical, organic changes are taking place. The nervous 
system is shifting its control, not suddenly, but gradu- 
ally and surely. Sense products are less regarded; the 
imagination is active; impulses are strong. Reasoning, 
however, is growing, though conclusions are likely to 
be hasty, and doggedly adhered to. The youth is often 
sceptical and conceited; obstinate at times, even to dis- 
agreeable stubbornness. He resents direct interference 
with his conduct. In the beginning, mental resource- 
fulness is rather on the side of the feelings than of the 
intelligence. This stage has been called, both physio- 
logically and psychologically, a period of second birth. 
It is the beginning of great enthusiasms and ideals, of 
unselfish love, and strong friendships. What was first 
a physical growth chiefly, and later intellectual, has 
come to be an expansion of the soul life. There is an 
increased and marked susceptibility to culture and de- 
velopment. 

While the normal mind is still receptive and re- 
active, it has in a marvellous way taken on cre- 
ative powers. It is sensitive to ideals, and aspires to 
reach them personally, and believes that it can. The 
days are given to hero-worship, a reverence for those 



282 Science of Education 

who have stood for something great or good or beauti- 
ful, and achieved distinction and proved themselves 
capable. The youth now plans great things, is optimis- 
tic and ambitious. In the presence of possibilities he is 
credulous and confident. He is vulnerable to every en- 
thusiastic appeal, and for this reason is open to mani- 
fold and curious temptations. But, for the same rea- 
son, he loves athletics and honorable rivalries, and dis- 
covers himself in his contests. In much the same way, 
also, he responds to aggressive leadership in sports, or 
education, or ideals of conduct. Very sensitive to ad- 
verse criticism and innuendoes, he, nevertheless, submits 
readily to discipline through his ideals. It has been 
called " the Elizabethan Age of youth," * and is full 
of ambitious plans and enthusiasms, self-discoveries, 
many uncertainties and abounding hopefulness. 

* Halleck. " Proceedings of the N. E. A.," 1902, p. 731. 



CHAPTER XX 
MENTAL PROCESSES 

(2) Given the capacities of mind and generic quali- 
ties, psychology contributes to educational science a 
knowledge of mental processes. 

It has been already noted that mind is essentially 
active. All growth is consequent upon this activity, 
and, soon after early childhood, purposed activity. 
Throughout life this remains the one instrument of edu- 
cation. Teachers are primarily interested in the opera- 
tions of the mind, the way in which and the conditions 
by which the processes go on — in thinking rather than 
thought; in feeling rather than emotion; in knowing, 
and remembering — not in knowledge or things done or 
remembered. The step by which a child comes to his 
right or wrong conclusions, to hate, or confidence, or 
strong purpose, or fine ideals, or to habits of industiy, 
or respect, is important. As persons we are first of all 
interested that those for whom we have hopes shall have 
right thoughts and ideals, sane emotions, accurate mem- 
ories, and skill in doing ; shall be responsive to sympathy 
rather than hate and bitterness, shall be industrious and 
respectful. But as teachers, responsible for this im- 
provement, as directing and guiding this development, 

283 



284 Science of Education 

we mii&t be chiefly and immediately concerned in tlie 
steps and conditions of tlieir correct feeling and know- 
ing and choosing in tlieir varied aspects. Hence this 
paragraph. 

Among the more general characteristics of the mental 
processes the following are given: First, they are lim- 
ited to the three functions named and their several 
phases. There is no fourth, and no classification that 
omits either is regarded as complete. The mind appre- 
hends or thinks; it feels, in the sense of enjoying or suf- 
fering; it purposes and makes effort. The most unde- 
veloped human life, after it has once become conscious, 
does so much ; and the most highly cultivated can 
do no more. Between the two extremes the difference 
is one of degree, not of kind. Each is deserving of its 
share of instruction or guidance. Life is but partial, 
however knowing, if it be not also moral ; if it be gener- 
ously furnished with learning, while devoid of a pro- 
portioned sense of the "ought" involved; or, if it be 
supersensitive, lacking the common sense to properly 
value deserts; or, if it be headstrong, with lack of knowl- 
edge and right disposition. 

Mental activity is most effective when following lines 
of least resistance. This requires that there shall be 
no opposing break between present and past activities. 
What has been done exists as a force, giving direction 
to what may be done. Perceiving makes other per- 
ceiving easier, richer in the same line. The nerve paths 
already made are grooves for all subsequent doings of 
like kind. Inference is made more certain by the ac- 



Mental Processes 285 

cumulation of a store of accurate observations from 
wliicli to draw the inference. One may be really great 
upon occasion, by virtue of having lived up to one's 
greatest upon all occasions. A long-continued practice 
of clearly imaging one's representative experience 
makes clear imagery easy. To have embraced coarse- 
ness and sensual interest and animal appetites for a time 
makes coarse and sensual and brute doing a very natu- 
ral consequence. The line of past acting or thinking 
or feeling is a line of least resistance. This fact has 
definite bearings upon formal education. It requires 
that, of a given series of experiences for the early years 
of childhood, that shall be presented first which is 
easiest, psychologically the most available; and that 
last which is most difficult. This is not the logical order, 
but the empirical order. The logical order requires 
that that shall come first upon which other steps de- 
pend, and that last which depends upon all the others. 
This is a secondary sequence, and belongs to the higher 
stages of critical learning. 

Kindred to this characteristic is another to the 
effect that new forms of mental activity are difficult, 
and difficult in proportion to their strangeness. The 
two principles lie at the foundation of most efforts 
to grade the exercises to fit the growing mind. Mr. 
Palmer has pointed out * that " the line of least 
resistance tends toward degradation," which means 
in terms of the present discussion that the highest men- 
tal work is to be accomplished only by combining the 

* " The Science of Education," p. 163. 



286 Science of Education 

tv/o principles of activity named above, and holding the 
child responsible for essaying the more, possibly the 
most difficult tasks for which his experience and his own 
purposes have equipped him. The prescribed exercises 
must be graded, but graded up to his best. He is to be 
held responsible for the longest steps he is able to take, 
and still give him sure footing. In personal effort and 
for educational results, it is the last half inch of stretch 
that counts, provided the stretch permits of vigorous 
recovery. 

A principle of kindred import is to the effect that 
mental processes are easiest and most immediately ef- 
fective, if in the lines of closest relations. It must be 
borne in mind that the " close relations " must be such 
as appear close, or are made to appear close, to the 
child himself. At first this connection is the artificial 
one of the chance personal or adventitious interest, or 
of happening at the same time, or of objects that appeal 
to the senses in the same way. In time, the relations 
of cause and effect, or similarity of structure or func- 
tion, or of whole and part, or of organism and organ, 
or of occurrence and accompanying conditions, appear 
— are recognized as close. Accompanying the recogni- 
tion that there may be other close relations, and relations 
that are vital, the search for them is of the nature of 
the real scientific spirit. The function of directed edu- 
cation is to bring the pupil to a realization of what 
relations are fundamentally " close," and why they are 
such; so that the thought activity shall freely follow 
that rather than the more accidental and interest- 



Mental Processes 287 

emphasized relations. It must not go unobserved, how- 
ever, that such activity, as it involves new and higher 
forms of discrimination and kinship, is relatively more 
exhausting of energy and requires frequent alteration 
and remission of activity. 

It has already been suggested that mind works most 
easily in regTilarly recurring periods. This needs no 
elaboration here, and is noted only to make the enumer- 
ation of typical characteristics of the mental process 
fairly complete. 

In all operations where both are involved violent 
feeling and knowing are antagonistic. Usually moder- 
ate feeling, if it be pleasurable, is an aid to thinking. 
But it easily becomes obstructive, interfering with the 
accuracy of the process, or giving a bias to the conclu- 
sions. In the form in which it is stated, the principle 
is probably always true, that feeling and thinking, if 
either or both be intense, are mutually disturbing, and 
yet, other conditions being the same, a glow of agree- 
able feeling must be upon any act of knomng to bring 
it up to the best. Fear, however, or anger, suspicion, 
or hatred, is, with almost anyone, a bar to clear under- 
standing or intelligent effort, and especially is this so 
of children. Occasionally an adult mind may be stim- 
ulated to do its best work in the face of fierce opposition, 
or distrust ; not so of children. " Fear," says Alexander 
Bain,* " wastes the energy and scatters the thoughts, 
and is ruinous to the interests of mental progress. Its 
one certain result is to paralyze and arrest action, or 
* " Education aa a Science," p. 54, 67. 



288 Science of Education 

else to concentrate force at some central point at the 
cost of general debility. The tyrant, working by 
terror, disarms rebelliousness, but fails to procure 
energetic service." Timidity, anger, hatred, undue 
rivalry, oversensitiveness* are, in their several ways, 
equally opposed to effective exercise of thought power, 
or of reasonable behavior. On the other hand, the 
pleasurable feeling that stimulates to activity is to be 
cultivated in all natural ways. The author just quoted 
says : " With understood exceptions, pleasure is related 
physically with vitality, health, vigor, harmonious ad- 
justment of all parts of the system ; it needs sufficiency 
of nutriment or supjx)rt, excitement within due limits, 
and the absence of anything that could mar or irritate 
any organ." 

The pedagogical meanings of such words are easily 
derived. ^Next to a keen purpose, tlie feelings are 
thought's best ally, but a destructive and relentless 
enemy. Both hope and danger lie that way. Prima- 
rily, all activity of the mind involves an element of the 
pleasurable. Even anger and spite and terror have 
their attractions. One sometimes enjoys nursing his 
passion ; but just the same, its presence endangers the 
thinking and the free purpose behind effort, as well. 
Undue excitement, even though pleasurable, is to be 
discouraged. Class enthusiasm may be only noise and 
confusion. The thoughtful and efficient teacher will 
distinguish between real interest — even abounding in- 
terest — and the ebullience of mere excitment. 

Along with the general description of the mental 



Mental Processes 289 

processes just given there are certain classifications of 
therm that have pedagogical importance. It will be 
understood that the grouping given is for pedagogical 
purposes rather than scientific. First, they are to be 
discriminated as either sensuous or ideal. Bj Spencer 
and others, the two processes are called presentative and 
representative. If the mental act be still further re- 
moved from the activity of the senses, it becomes re- 
representative. Any process that rests immediately 
upon the exercise of the senses is sensuous or presenta- 
tive. Seeing, observing, perceiving, feeling in the pres- 
ence of the object, are sensuous acts of mind. Even 
memory, imagination and judgment, that deal directly 
with the relatively bare images of the sense, are of this 
class. Emotion in the presence of nature, and having 
immediate reference to its incitements, has the like 
character. 

Of course, it will be seen that there is no sharp 
line of division between the more complex sense-pro- 
voked activities and the simple representative forms. 
In general the former are more lively, seemingly more 
real, of narrow and specific import, and thing-endowed, 
as compared with the coi-responding representative acts 
involving conceptions and thinking, though this be of 
the simple sort. But in the natural order the former 
shade into the latter, and " our inward images tend 
invincibly to attach themselves to something sensi- 
ble." * A relative independence, however, from the 
limitations of the sense-perception is essential to real 

* James. "Psychology," ii, p. 305. 



290 Science of Education 

thinking. The condition of gro^\i;h from one to the 
other is not to have less to do with the activity and 
product of the senses, but to save in the higher images 
the essential marks derived in many perceptions. One 
indispensable factor in all right thinking (in all safe 
representative processes) is a habit of accurate sensing. 
There is no representation worthy of the name that does 
not rest upon an abundant and discriminating sensuous 
experience. 

In all matters of intellectual growth, much else may 
be safely omitted, if only a sound habit of thinking 
be grounded upon an adequate store of presentative 
knowledge. This dependence is one of vital importance 
in schooling, and yet one that is almost habitually dis- 
regarded, even in specially devised sense-exercises. 
From a secondary source, to learn a list of facts about 
an object is not an act of sense-perceiving. 

Mental processes, also, are either pleasure-giving or 
pain-giving; in the activity or in the product, or both. 
The agreeable movement will be often repeated. Pain 
and the remembrance of pain lead to the inhibitions of 
acts, or to caution, or stoical endurance. Constitution- 
ally, the mind finds pleasure in sensing, and imaging, 
remembering, thinking, purposing, planning, and do- 
ing. Each may become painful if associated with dis- 
agreeable sensations, or frightful images, or distressing 
memories, or forced thinking, etc. But one, even a 
very young child, may often be won to a disagreeable 
task through hope of accomplishing an ultimate cov- 
eted good or pleasure that lies beyond. A valuable par- 



Mental Processes 291 

agraph in Bain's " Education as a Science " is that 
wherein he discusses the means of arousing an interest 
in the indifferent; attention to what is not in itself 
pleasurable. " The beginnings of knowledge," he says,* 
" are in activity and in pleasure, but the culminating 
point is in the power of attending to things in them- 
selves indifferent." The energies do not lend them- 
selves to tasteless efforts. The end to be attained must 
be seen to be worth striving for. The intermediate 
steps may be disagreeable or at least unattractive, but 
they will be taken, and may be taken cheerfully, if the 
object to be reached is felt (by the child) to be worth 
while — worth the effort and the distress. If it be 
thought eminently desirable or relatively so to the 
pupil, the distress may be forgotten — unfelt even, 
borne with pleasure — the end with its own anticipated 
joy saturating the means with content. In another 
paragraph the author last quoted concludes : " To fall 
in love with and pursue the indifferent and insipid is 
a contradiction in terms. It is as means to ends that 
things indifferent in themselves can conmiand atten- 
tion." -j- But, for the individual, the highest value at- 
taches to the purposed or habitual substitution of dis- 
tant ends for immediate ones as stimulus to such action. 
Again, mental processes are either spontaneous or 
controlled. These represent, rather, stages in mental 
development than unlike process-forms at the same 
stage. The former is characteristic of childhood, es- 

* Bain. " Education as a Science," p. 178. 
t Ibid., p. 181. 



292 Science of Education 

pecially tlie earliest years ; the latter of the later youth 
and adulthood. Nevertheless, even in the experiences 
of the young, there are few if any activities that are 
altogether spontaneous, and among older people there 
are none who do not show more or less of impulsiveness 
in their behavior, or opinions, or conclusions. This, 
nevertheless, is a cardinal distinction in the mind's 
processes. The difference is measured in meaning by 
such words as " intent," " purpose," " choice," " de- 
cision," " selection," " rejection," " preference," 
" scepticism," " consent," etc., etc., tlie mind putting 
upon each act so valued its seal of decision. 

The two forms of process are applicable to practically 
all the functions of the mind. Memory has its voluntary 
side in recollection ; imagination, as philosophical or 
constructive ; thinking, in formal judgments ; perception, 
in investigation ; sympathy, in beneficence ; gregari- 
ousness, in sociability, etc. The natural tendency, other 
conditions being equivalent, is away from control and 
toward impulse. Recollection tends to deteriorate into 
remembrance, or reminiscence ; imagination, into 
fancy ; thinking, into playing with the " symbols of 
thinking"; investigation, into passive seeing; sym- 
pathy, into mere gush of feeling; sociability, into disr 
sipation of companionship; attention, to mere aimless 
interest. The tendency of all directed education is 
toward a larger possible purposeful activity. This it is, 
to be educable; to take on the higher, because more 
fruitful and serviceable forms of intended activity. 
The two are not always readily distinguishable. But 



Mental Processes 293 

the field is an inviting one for study and for peda- 
gogical results. 

Processes, further, are either analytic or synthetic. 
In character the two are sharply opposed to each other, 
and mutually exclusive, though intimately associated. 
By implication, at least, if not positively, each is pres- 
ent in every act of the other. Chronologically, and 
therefore psychologically, analysis is primary and fun- 
damental. The simple way of regarding an object is 
to see it as a unit. The impression is of the thing as 
one and undivided. Seeing it as divisible is the first 
step of the mind in analysis. In thought, dividing the 
whole into parts, and recognizing these as parts of this 
whole is the completed act of analysis. In a way, 
" analysis of a thing means separate attention to each 
of its parts." Any given act of analysis is furthered by 
past experience; by knowing what may reasonably be 
looked for. But thinking a whole into its parts has 
been accompanied from the beginning of the act by 
the constant tendency of the mind to cover these back 
into the whole, which is nascent synthesis. The two 
have gone along together, as they must always go along 
together. Each implies the other. If there were no 
parts recognizable as making up a whole, as belonging 
together in that way, there would be no whole to be 
known as resolvable into parts. But the first act of the 
mind, as a distinct act of consciousness, is in the recog- 
nition of the individual as such. All words at first are 
proper names. Each thing or person or idea is a com- 
plete object of thought. In time the parts of each are 



294 Science of Education 

discriminated, and the relations of these parts or mean- 
ings ; in time, also, the likeness of the relations among 
the parts of different objects. But throughout the proc- 
ess the mind harks hack through the parts and im- 
plicit relations to the whole for a fresh start, and so 
by a rudimentary synthesis verifies its analysis. It is 
this retracing of the steps that lends the act of analysis 
validity, and satisfies the mind. 

The unspoiled mind goes through this process nat- 
urally and with pleasure. It should be no less efficient 
in the formal exercises of the school, nor less agreeable. 
Objects of nature, human achievement, the fine arts, 
language and other expressions, calculation, the facts 
and conditions of health, personal conduct, and social 
conventions, as representative of school studies, must 
each be resolved in the same way, if resolved at all. 
And it need only be mentioned, not argued, that this 
recognition of parts and relations of qualities and uses 
must be the child's own act; neither the analysis nor 
the synthesis can, with advantage, be manufactured for 
the child by parent or teacher and handed over to him 
ready made. The act, to be worth anything, must be 
his ; the product, if not the result of his own thinking, 
has for him no meaning at all. 



CHAPTER XXI 
MENTAL PROCESSES (Concluded) 

Finally among the classes of mental processes to be 
considered are two kindred to those just mentioned — in- 
terpretative and constructive. These are variously com- 
bined in individual capacities. Each implies the other, 
but is less consciously present in the other than was 
shown of analysis and synthesis. Many persons are 
able to enjoy music of the better sort who are altogether 
incapable of combining tones into harmonies, or even 
into themes, or musical phrases. Appreciation implies 
a degree of interpretation, discovering the harmony in 
the piece of music, and a discrimination and enjoyment 
of the parts, or of particular phrases, or tone series of 
the theme, regarded as parts of the whole; and by 
implication, as noted in the last paragi-aph, constitutes 
formal or rudimentary analysis, but stops short of the 
form of original creativeness, represented by what has 
been called the constructive act. The two processes 
are very distinct. This power to interpret may be 
applied to understanding a machine, an industrial plant, 
a commercial system, an army, the artistic features of 
a picturesque landscape, an argument, an historical es- 
say, or a poem, without bringing the observer nearer to 
being able to construct or direct the construction of 

295 



296 Science of Education 

such macliine, to administer an industrial plant or a 
given commercial system, to dictate the movements of 
an army, to describe the landscape, or to compose the 
argument, the historical treatise, or the poem. And 
yet for every individual, in one form or another, in a 
greater or less degree, both powers are native endow- 
ments. The former has been the object of most sys- 
tems of formal training; the latter has been largely dis- 
regarded. The schools have sought to cultivate the 
understanding, the power to apprehend, to interpret, to 
explain ; but rarely to do, to make, to execute ; to imitate, 
to accept, to follow authority — but not to initiate, to 
originate, to lead, to direct. 

This appears to be more difficult; it is a more diffi- 
cult process. But, all the more for this reason, there 
is need of efforts at systematic cultivation. In its be- 
ginning, spithesis is only the other side of a process 
that on one side is analysis. In its higher forms it is 
much more complex. Interpretation is related to anal- 
ysis; constructiveness to synthesis. But when the con- 
^structive art takes on the character of invention or com- 
position it becomes more complicated. In analysis the 
whole is given whose parts are to be discriminated; in 
synthesis the whole itself is to be found, and elements 
gathered to constitute this hypothetic whole. This is 
not more true^ — to use again the first illustration — of 
musical composition than of mechanical invention and 
manufacture, the framing of ordinances, the construc- 
tion of a philosophical system, the composition of a 
metrical story, or devising and working out an educa- 



Mental Processes 297 

tional policy. Just as it is easier in physical phenomena 
to trace effects from a given cause than, given a mani- 
fold of effects, to find their cause, so is the selection 
and building up of detached experiences or ideas into 
(constituted wholes of meaning and influence coiTespond- 
ingly difficult. Its conserving requires positive effort, 
except perhaps in the case of special endowments; but 
the investment yields large returns of power in initia- 
tive and resourcefulness. 

Much may be done in the accustomed routine of the 
school. An increase in the relative amount of doing, 
as compared with the merely thinking and interpreting 
exercises ; more originating of designs by pupils, and 
the working out of their own designs ; more learning 
that finds its end in doing, or conduct, or execution — 
or learning through thoughtful doing, or purposed con- 
duct, or studied execution — would, does, add greatly 
to the improvement of the creative, constructive faculty. 

But of all the processes of the mind the two most 
fundamental, perhaps, in a pedagogical sense, are dis- 
crimination and attention. Professor James mentions as 
the fundamental forces — after sensibility — discrimina- 
tion, association, memory, and choice. Bain speaks of 
discrimination, agreement, and retentiveness as being 
" the three great functions of the intellect." Sully 
accepts this classification. In most other psychologies 
little is made of discrimination except as an incidental 
accompaniment of the other functions. And yet Mr. 
Sully insists * that " the discrimination of difference is 

* " The Human Mind," i, p. 62. 



298 Science of Education 

the most fundamental and constant element in intel- 
lection," " Every cognition/' says D. G. Thompson,* 
" is a cognition of difference. Hence consciousness of 
difference is a universal element of states of conscious- 
ness." And Bain again asserts, " The beginning of 
knowledge is discrimination." 

So much has been said of discrimination, by way of 
introduction, in this paragraph because, in general, 
more emphasis, perhaps a disproportioned emphasis, has 
been placed, by most writers, upon association than 
upon the process named. Porter in " The Human In- 
tellect " devotes a long chapter to the former, and in 
a book of nearly seven, hundred pages only incidentally 
mentions the latter. By recent writers the two are gen- 
erally co-ordinated. Not all agree in ranking retentive- 
ness with the other two, although Sully does do so. 
The two processes to which this paragraph is given, 
however, are discrimination and attention : the former as 
carrying with it by implication associative and related 
integrative processes; the latter as being equally essen- 
tial and having peculiar pedagogical bearings. Both 
are primary processes. 

There seems to be, as pointed out by an occasional 
writer, a prevailing tendency in the mind to inte- 
grate its experiences, the law being that " all things 
fuse that can fuse, and nothing separates except 
what must." Yet this " separating " of experiences, 
thinking them in terms of their differences, not less 
than their likenesses, is essential to clear thought or 
* " A System of Psychology," i, p. 104. 



Mental Processes 299 

reasoning. It is the one representative process by 
which the imagination gets its elements for recom- 
bining into new forms. Pleasures and pains begin 
in discriminated sensations and feelings. As has 
been already pointed out by Bain, in his " ]\Iental Sci- 
ence," all mental life is dependent upon change. An 
unchanging world of matter, without variation of move- 
ment or color or size or shape or other quality, would 
be unknowable. As, for the infant, the Avorld of thing 
and action exists primarily as a confused whole, which 
yields but slowly to division and particular impressions; 
so to the older child, as pupil, the store of literature and 
history and science first appears as a more or less tan- 
gled and obscurely ordered mass of possible facts, which, 
.through discrimination and comparison, become real 
facts of mind, and hence, to him, facts of nature and 
art. It is a process of inventorying a consignment 
which, when singled out and labeled, and in time classed, 
becomes his own. 

Governments and functions and peoples, and cus- 
toms and institutions, and cultures and arts, and 
ideals and phenomena, and forces and material forms, 
are, by each one for himself, to be experienced, par- 
celed out, and objectified ; and this is a large part of 
the child's study of literature and history and science. 
Naturally, almost from the beginning of any particular 
activity, there has gone along the corresponding process 
of classification, assimilation, including comparisons and 
association in terms of likenesses. But there could be 
no comparison, or association, or assimilation unless 



300 Science of Education 

there were discriminated parts or elements, to be com- 
pared, or associated, or assimilated. ISTo impression, 
whether obtained through the senses or through reflec- 
tion, is definite or clear unless it is picked out and dis- 
tinguished from others. Gladstone's epigram, that he 
" never quite knew a thing till he had run the fingers 
of his mind around the edges of the thought," illus- 
trates the point admirably. The power to isolate an 
object, or an idea, or a theme, or a picture, or an act, 
and make it the object of one's attention, is a vital 
achievement in all learning — vital on the plane of sense, 
vital in judgment and reasoning. Assimilation is im- 
portant; but this process seems to be assured by the 
mind itself; besides, its frequent and careful exposition 
has made it better understood. Discrimination is often 
difiicult, and there is an observable tendency in most 
minds, especially those of children, to neglect it. For 
the highest uses it requires an effort or the incentive of 
an outer guidance. It tends to deteriorate, leaving the 
mind content with indistinct impressions and sensations, 
vague mental images, relatively blurred experiences, 
and confused judgments. 

In the history of the race, science, whose classifica- 
tions rest upon distinct and accurate discriminations, 
is a very recent achievement. Most people of the pres- 
ent day do not think in this latter sense. For most of 
them the mainland of experience is parceled out by 
the traditional system of metes and bounds, carelessly 
fixed at first, and the marks soon lost. Right think- 
ing fixes boundaries and distinctions, and interprets 



Mental Processes 301 

ownership in terms of these not less than in terms of 
content as such. Pedagogically, this all means that 
the pupil is to be held responsible for only such dis- 
criminations as he is able to make, and for all such. 

The one further act of mind here to be considered 
is attention. Few will venture to disagree with Rosen- 
kranz in the often quoted dictum that " To education 
the conception of attention is the most important one 
of all those derived from psychology." The topic is 
not introduced here for scientific treatment, but to 
advert to such phases of the process as are important 
educationally, and especially pedagogically. Extracts 
might be indefinitely multiplied, showing a consensus 
of opinion in harmony with that of Rosenkranz. A 
few only need be noted. Guyau says: " The cultiva- 
tion of attention is the secret of all intellectual train- 
ing"; and Ladd: "Attention, the selective focusing of 
psychic energy, is the primary condition of all intelli- 
gence"; and Sully: "The processes of rational atten- 
tion constitute a main factor in all that we understand 
by thinking." Mr. Gordy says: " The purpose of 
teaching is to develop the power of attending to the 
right things in the right way"; and James: " An edu- 
cation which should improve this faculty would be edu- 
cation 'par excellence." 

It will be apparent that, both psychologically and 
pedagogically, the act called attention is an essential for 
any real mental work by any function. It is recog- 
nized as present as an active factor in both feeling 
and knowing; in perception, imagination, comparison, 



302 Science of Education 

discrimination; and, especially, in thinking and reason- 
ing. What we remember or recollect depends in large 
measure upon what we attend to. " To attend," it has 
been said, " means to perform other functions of the 
mind with care and with energy." It is not to be 
thought of as a faculty or power, but rather as a process, 
a way of acting, the mode, a mode of the mind's activ- 
ity. In this sense it has been defined as the process of 
cognition itself — " the movement of the mind from 
feeling-consciousness to thought-consciousness." Inclu- 
sively, as to product, " my experience," says Professor 
James, " is what I agree to attend to." 

From which, and other considerations, it will be ob- 
vious that there are certain well-defined characteristics 
of this act called attention. Primarily, it is a selective 
act; in childhood, less consciously so than in adult 
years, but selective nevertheless. It employs discrim- 
ination, and out of several possible objects, or impres- 
sions, or trains of thought that may be followed, atten- 
tion is, in a clear and vivid way, taking one and con- 
verging upon it available mental energy. It is analytic 
and primary. It means effort, intent; but discriminat- 
ing intent. With something of prevision, it chooses 
what the mind shall see, or remember, or think, or do, 
or enjoy, or use. The act of attention is, so far, an act 
of detention, holding before the mind the object of its 
interest, for detailed beholding or inquiry. Within the 
field of its choice tie act is comprehensive and critical. 
It is the spirit of all investigation and intelligent 
" study." It is responsible for the faithfulness to fact 



Mental Processes 303 

of all high art ; and of the intellect to truth ; and of the 
heart and will to character. It makes possible the 
mind's discriminations in science and philosophy. 

In the early years of childhood the " selection " is 
mainly by means of the child's constitutional prefer- 
ences, or the passing influence of his teachers. In a 
sense, his interest is solicited, apparently impelled, and 
so his attention. The objects or ideas are not always of 
his own choosing. But as the early semi-purposeless acts 
of imitation are the beginning of his later purposeful 
doing, so these solicited acts of attention prepare the 
mind for the more consciously discriminating processes 
iater. This is the order of growth: those were chiefly 
occasioned by environment, including teachers and 
elders; for the maturer form there must be inner occa- 
sion, self -intent ; a purposed " focalization, a concentra- 
tion of consciousness; a withdrawal from some things, 
in order to deal effectively with others." It is purpose- 
ful; and when one considers that attention is this deter- 
mining exercise of will upon the various mental, and 
especially intellectual, functions, it need not seem strange 
that one should be drawn to make the somewhat exag- 
gerated statement that " volition is nothing but atten- 
tion." * 

The importance of the will and the part it plays in 
the act of attention will appear from another consid- 
eration also. In contrast Avith the sentence just quoted 
from Professor James is the following from Professor 
Ladd f to the effect that " attention is identical with 

* James. "Psychology," i, p. 447. 

f " Outlines of Descriptive Psychology," p. 42. 



304 Science of Educatiori 

interest, and interest is feeling." It is not necessary 
to indorse either of tkese probably extreme statements 
to recognize that both interest and will are important 
factors, and ever-present ones, in giving character to 
attention. The degree and kind of interest one has in- 
fluences his attention, without doubt. " The mind 
tends to attend to what is pleasurable." " In the pres- 
ence of the more enjoyable," says Bain,* " the less 
enjoyable is disregarded." The movement of the mind 
is, in general, toward the pleasing; as a product of evo- 
lution it should be so. Attention to the disagreeable, 
as a rule, is infertile. Only that which has been 
learned on a rising tide of interest is a productive factor 
in experience. But this does not mean that attention 
with an effort, willed attention, excludes interest. All 
attention worthy of the name is a purposed conver- 
gence of function, and may be, often is, always at best, 
in line with some conceived interest. Consciously di- 
rected attention is not, then, necessarily, or usually, 
perhaps, an accent of the disagreeable to fix its mean- 
ings, but more often a reinforcement of mere interest 
to make both more effective. Sometimes the two are 
at discord with each other; and interest being diverted, 
will is left to pull against gravity. But it must be re- 
membered that inattention is not non-attention, and is 
often nothing more than the attention of interest over- 
riding the effort of the will. The most inattentive 
member of the class may be the most attentive really, 
and most productively so. 

* " Education as a Science," p. 179, 



Mental Processes 305 

The confusion that has just been noticed, in part 
grows out of the failure to distinguish between the 
more remote interests of the man and the relatively 
local and transient interests of the child. The one 
is absorbed by the thing he does — whether it be 
reading, playing, making a toy, or planning a holi- 
day: the other, setting himself to the accomplishing 
of some distant end, finds a quieter, maybe, but a 
genuine and abiding content in the daily tasks as 
contributing steps. As a form of growth, along this 
way lies the cultivation of attention. Voluntary at- 
tention is thus always " derived," not immediate, as 
it is in the earlier form. That is, it has a borrowed in- 
terest that projects itself into the future, and reflects 
upon each detail of the way the influence of a higher 
faculty. Dr. Harris, in his notes upon Rosenkranz's 
" Intellectual Education," * calls the successive stages 
of development " moments of attention," and names 
four: (1) as a mere power of isolating one object from 
others; (2) as analysis, or continued attention; (3) 
as abstraction; and (4) as synthesis, in which the atten- 
tion is fixed upon the essential relations discovered by 
analysis and abstraction. 

Among the conditions of effective attention may be 
named a sense of pleasurable activity, the growing of 
selective interest, regulated intensity of stimulus, 
health and physical vigor, and a clear and steady pur- 
pose. These conditions themselves will suggest a num- 
ber of difficulties, or the obstacles to attention; these 
* " Philosophy of Education," p. 71. 



306 Science of Education 

and some others follow : weakness of bodily powers ; an 
unfavorable environment (of sights, or sounds, or tem- 
perature, or ventilation, or furniture) ; a wandering 
mental habit; a "waiting" temperament or a vola- 
tile one; and tlie imposition of unsuitable tasks. In 
each case the symptoms suggest plainly enough, per- 
haps, the cure. For purposes of training, the effort 
should be, not for long-continued attention, but for 
sharp, effective focusing; the chief defect is a disper- 
sion and thriftless use of energy. A recitation of five 
minutes that excludes unrelated matters is more pro- 
ductive of mental efficiency than a half hour of unwill- 
ing effort that must be held to its task by the teacher's 
device. AMiatever task is attempted should be easy 
enough to hold the attention, and hard enough to claim 
it. Even the child must see that something is to be 
undertaken that is deserving of its attention, and, once 
in the midst of the doing, it must be attractive enough 
to leave the assurance that sometliing is being accom- 
plished. Later the difficulty may be transferred to the 
doing, but not at first. Do not nag or quibble with the 
pupil; treat his efforts with respect; nagging is dis- 
tracting. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE GROWTH OF EMOTIONS 

An important chapter or paragraph in any treatment 
of education in a critical way is that which regards 
the growth or development of mind or the successive 
stages in the mind's unfolding. There is implied in 
this the gro^vth and maturing of the several functions — 
as perception, understanding, sympathy, choice. But 
inasmuch as mind, in all essential respects, acts as a 
whole, it is in place here to set forth first, as clearly as 
may be, the conditions and stages of the improving of 
the generic functions; at present, knowing, feeling. 
The full consideration of willing, the remaining func- 
tion, will be postponed to a subsequent chapter. And 
first of 

The Feelings 

It is not a little remarkable that, notwithstanding 
the increased emphasis placed upon the feelings in con- 
temporary science, the effect upon school practice, and 
even upon educational theories, has been so insignifi- 
cant. We prate of understanding, and reason, and judg- 
ment, and the divine imagination, and the dignity of 
the human will; and quote Shakespeare on man — a 

307 



308 Science of Education 

"Wonderful being ; " wliat a piece of work is man ; how 
noble in reason ; Low infinite in faculties ; in form and 
moving how express and admirable; in action how 
like an angel ; in apprehension how like a god ; the 
beauty of the world — the paragon of animals " : and 
give little thought to the systematic cultivation of the 
emotions and sentiments. It may be reasonably ques- 
tioned, however, whether our feelings are not the real 
human masters — the condition of greatness. " While 
philosophers are disputing about the government of the 
world," said Schiller, " hunger and love are perform- 
ing the task." In the last analysis, feeling is the fun- 
damental fact. " Our emotions," said Bascom, " pre- 
sent by far the most numerous, complex and varied 
features of the mind " ; in all essentials, a truer index 
of the soul than is the intellect. " When one stops to 
realize what a large part of our waking life our emo- 
tions constitute," wrote Oppenlieim, " he must be 
deeply impressed by their importance. Such things as 
fear and rage, love and hate, reverence and cynicism, 
the recognition and the lack of recognition of beauty, 
pride and humility, are among the biggest facts of 
life." 

In all deeper ways these great and universal forces 
lie much nearer the spring of human action than 
does the intelligence. JSTevertheless, the tendency of 
the schools is too often toward a hard, dry, cold in- 
tellectualism : " the curricula of studies are filled with 
branches to give activity to the intellect; but what 
branches are given to a cultivation of the sensibilities ? " 



The Growth of Emotions 309 

Under the caption of " Happy Association," while dis- 
cussing the culture of the emotions, Alexander Bain 
was led to an interesting bit of enthusiasm : " The edu- 
cationist could not but cast a longing eye over the wide 
region here opened up as a grand opportunity for his 
art It is the realm of vague possibility, peculiarly 
suited to sanguine estimates. An education in happi- 
ness, pure and simple, by well-placed and joyous asso- 
ciations is a dazzling prospect " ; and he quotes ap- 
provingly one of Sydney Smith's pithy sayings, that 
" if you make children happy now you make them 
happy twenty years hence by the memory of it." 

Is it inevitable, the teacher must ask himself, is it 
desirable, that the schools go on grinding out concepts, 
and ideas, and syllogisms, and logic products — even if it 
be by the " roller process " ? The incidental influences 
of life frequently develop one function out of all propor- 
tion to the others. An established and equipped and ex- 
pensive system of schools, offering a formal, provident 
training, should avoid that mistake. It would seem 
that thought and feeling should be permitted, at least, 
to grow along together, if, indeed, they be not con- 
sciously yoked in reinforcing activities. It is not 
enough that one have the manner and pattern of good- 
ness ; goodness must be allied to the feelings that help 
it out. " He alone is virtuous," said Aristotle, more 
than twenty-two centuries ago, " who finds pleasure in 
being so." The love of learning is better than any 
possession, and a sense of self-respect than high place 
and power. Out of feelings, it has been said, spring 



310 Science of Education 

actions; actions become habit; and habits crystallize 
into character. The great functions of the mind should 
work in harmony, and should be educated to work so. 
Coleridge's often-quoted epigram, " My head is with 
Spinoza but my heart with Paul and John " ; and St» 
Paul's, " When I would do good, evil is present with 
me," will find easy interpretations in the experiences 
of most persons. " The heart of man, which is capable 
of exercising the noblest desires, the tenderest affec- 
tions, the finest sentiments, and the sublimest emo- 
tions, is likewise capable of being ruled by the most 
depraved appetites, brutish passions, and fiendish emo- 
tions." What can a discriminating training do to fore- 
fend this possible miscarriage? What are the condi- 
tions of a healthy growth of the feelings into vigorous, 
liberal, regulated emotions? These are questions in 
practical pedagogy to which educational doctrine may 
suggest at least partial answers. 

The emotional states are complex, and intenninably 
mixed ; rarely pure, even the simplest ones ; and curi- 
ously intractable in any attempt at uniform classifica- 
tion. Indeed, Professor James says that " there is no 
limit to the number of possible different emotions that 
may exist, and the emotions of different individuals 
may vary indefinitely " ; and concludes that any classi- 
fication of the emotions is seen to be as true and as 
" natural " as any other, if it serve some purpose. Mr. 
Bascom presents * a full-page diagram, showing sixty- 
seven different emotions, under two general heads, in- 
* " Science of the Mind," p. 363, 



The Growth of Emotions 311 

tellectual feelings and spiritual feelings, but protests 
that he does not present the classification as exhaustive. 
Kant's grouping of the emotions into (1) melting emo- 
tions, like fear or sadness or mental shock, that par- 
alyze activity, and (2) stirring emotions, that arouse 
activity, like joy or anger, is suggested for educational 
criticism, but not directly helpful to teachers. Ladd 
uses four groups: (1) sensuous; (2) intellectual; (3) 
aesthetic; and (4) ethical; that explain themselves. 
Sir William Hamilton's arrangement, slightly modified 
for comparison, shows (1) sensuous feelings; (2) con- 
templative feelings (including the intellectual and 
aesthetic of the previous classification) ; and (3) prac- 
tical (comprising the self -regarding and race-preserv- 
ing feelings). Sully has two groups of the lower 
type, sense feelings and animal emotions ; and one class, 
the representative emotions to compass all the spirit- 
ual feelings. 

One other attempt at this classification must not 
be omitted, inasmuch as it admirably calls atten- 
tion to the increasing representativeness of the feel- 
ing sense in its development. By Herbert Spencer the 
feelings are arranged* in four classes: (1) presenta- 
tive feelings, active sense feelings; (2) presentative- 
representative feelings, actual and revived sense feel- 
ings; (3) representative feelings, revived sense feel- 
ings; and (4) re-representative feelings, as justice, 
patriotism, and the intellectual and ethical feelings 
generally. 

* " Principlea of Psychology," ii, p. 514. 



312 Science of Education 

Couched in technical terms as are most of these 
classifications, and especially Spencer's, there is still 
a general agreement upon certain points worth not- 
ing: (1) after the lowest or organic feelings, they 
all begin with the sense feelings; (2) the difference 
between these and the next and successively higher 
forms is a more or less decisive rise above the plane of 
the senses — the feeling becomes in some degree repre- 
sentative, not merely presentative ; (3) in each case the 
last group is the most highly representative of all, how- 
ever they may be named. Moreover, the three or four 
or five classes represent a fairly well defined order of 
development. If Ladd's arrangement be taken as a 
typical order, one should say that the sensuous feelings 
are (1) simpler than those that follow; (2) less spir- 
itual in character ; ( 3 ) of earlier beginning in both the 
race and the individual; (4) more fugitive; and (5) 
more dependent on the bodily organism. That, in gen- 
eral, the intellectual emotions precede the aesthetic or 
the ethical; and that, in the history of both the indi- 
vidual and the race, the development of the last is rel- 
atively late. 

The earliest forms are rather crude feelings, wholly 
self -regarding, only rudimentary as emotions, and chiefly 
instinctive. They are the immediate accompaniment 
of the sense activities, without imagination, and but lit- 
tle vitalized by experience. These feelings are, as a rule, 
intense, and often violent, unreflecting, and will-less. 
Because they are intense they are surprisingly fugitive, 
superficial, and easily displaced. In time through 



The Growth of Emotions 313 

memory and imagination these directly sensuous feel- 
ings become, in a measure, idealized, the intellectual 
emotions gain in relative importance, and a sense of 
beauty for other than the superfcially attractive ap- 
pears. Most fears and forms of anger fade, if once 
brought to compete with real intelligence. So the 
pleasures of companionship, and rivalry, and social 
measurement, and the incident emotions, crowd out the 
more troublesome self-regarding emotions, and take 
their place, or infuse them with the new spirit. 

In general the order of emotional growth may be de- 
scribed as from sense to excitement ; from chiefly nega- 
tive to positive feelings ; from excitant to regulative con- 
ditions; from immediate to associative and derived 
meanings; from merely impulsive to intelligence-filled 
feelings. It has been said that the principle of associa- 
tive transference (referred to above) is " one of the high- 
est practical importance. It secures the persistence of 
feeling by extending the range of excitant. We invest 
indifferent objects with agreeable or disagTeeable asso- 
ciations; feeling becomes enlarged, spread out, as well 
as deepened and consolidated by the development of rep- 
resentation (imagination and thought). The individ- 
ual grows calmer as he grows older." Steadiness of 
purpose, too, w^orks out steadiness of feelings. 

The very democracy of the school is a factor in regu- 
lating the emotions. Many a boy has been brought to do, 
as one of many, not what he liked and found his joy in, 
but what he must, and has come to count it greater joy. 
Child feelings are spontaneous and artless. In time one 



314 Science of Education 

learns concealmentj a counterfeit manner, and what 
Kant calls " impenetrability of soul." It may develop 
into an extreme form of injury, but it represents control 
and attempt at regulation. The mind having formed 
many associations (derivative feelings), there is a ten- 
dency to strengthen associations in certain directions that 
prevent or exclude other associations. " This expresses," 
says Thompson, " the law of habit, on its intellectual 
side." Selfishness and sympathy, meanness and justice, 
hate and love, do not rule a life together. One or the 
other is likely to become dominant and permanent. 
There is a blunting of the emotions also, by age, by 
study, etc., because of which the right stimulation 
of desirable ones in the earlier years becomes im- 
portant. The love of the beautiful, in form, and color, 
and conduct, is practically denied to one whose heart 
and motives have not been properly touched in youth. 
If the love of knowledge, joy in acquisition, be not 
awakened in childhood, it is not likely to be in man- 
hood, however much the mind may be filled with 
learning. 

A paragraph concerning the laws and conditions of 
growth of the feelings must close this discussion. For 
the most part, the laws of development of mind as a 
whole, or of the intellect, or of any particular mani- 
festation of the intellect, are equally applicable to the 
feelings. For growth of faculty exercise is the one pre- 
vailing requisite. Among the feelings along with the 
exercise of any one feeling there goes repression of its 
ppposite — repression, either direct or incidental. Sym- 



The Growth of Emotions 315 

pathy itself may be over-sensitive and call for repres- 
sion. The essential quality of anger that shows itself in 
indignation or emphatic self-assertion may need encour- 
agement or positive culture. Sociability may be exces- 
eive; truthfulness may accompany a morbid conscien- 
tiousness. 

The more intense feelings, as a rule, are transient; 
permanency is likely to attach to moderation and con- 
trol. Bursts of temper are best left to run their course. 
Treatment will be likely to be more effective when 
the passion has subsided. Similarly, over-zealous affec- 
tion, and intense hatred, and depth of discouragement 
(especially in the young) are likely to run but short 
courses. Permanence of desirable emotions is to come, 
as a rule, through this control to moderation. In this 
connection it should be observed that like feelings sus- 
tain, as those unlike displace each other. In the 
chance combinations of anger, hatred, malice, and jeal- 
ousy, or any number of them, each would be stronger 
because of the others present; as would be truth, cour- 
age, love, and patience for the same reason. With 
children especially, new excitants are more likely to 
produce strong emotions, and old ones weaker, though 
customary things are often more pleasing than are the 
unfamiliar. Sympathy, interest, content are the great 
harmonizers. Repugnance, even in its mildest form, 
divides and estranges. 

It may fairly be asked of the teacher that he provide 
as certainly for the right exercise of the emotions as 
of the faculty of understanding; that emotions be 



316 Science of Education 

induced to issue in their appropriate action; and that he 
himself live the emotion he would cultivate in his pupils. 
Whatever emotion is sought to be cultivated must be 
reached by positive, though, as a rule, indirect exercise ; 
they must be stimulated to feel as you would have them 
feel. The law of repetition holds here, too, as it does with 
the processes of understanding. Feelings are subject to 
habit, as are talking and thinking. Purposely to have 
done kind deeds wdien they w^ere matters of indifference 
makes it easier to do kind things and say kind words 
when tempted to withhold. To refrain from anger 
when the provocation is slight paves the way for con- 
trol when the provocation is great. A habit of being 
really and intellectually interested in things and per- 
sons makes any fictitious feeling about them seem 
puerile. One is not likely to cherish feelings of 
revenge or jealousy if the mind have abiding interests 
to work out. 



CHAPTER XXm 
THE GROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE 

The kind of growth that is most familiar to teachers, 
in name at least, is that of the intellect. Our acquaint- 
ance with knowledge and the thinking faculty, and the 
nature of presentative and representative functions is 
far more definite and more systematically ordered and 
answerable to tests than is our knowledge of the will or 
the feelings. But about the details of intellectual 
gro^vth even there is not a little hazy thinking, and 
more hazy practice in the attempt to give it direction. 
By growth of body is meant primarily a change in size, 
though there are, especially at certain periods of life, 
considerable and influential changes of function and 
character as well ; by growth of mind is meant, even to 
the lay mind, chiefly changes of quality, though these 
go along with great accumulations of experience — a 
quantitive change. In the growth of the emotions the 
modification is ahnost wholly one of quality, having to 
do, primarily, with greater or less degrees of intensity, 
and more or less breadth and refinement of sensibility. 
The growth of intelligence may be set off more in detail, 
the lines or stages of growth suggesting the right plac- 

317 



318 Science of Education 

ing of accent in its culture. What these stages are and 
how thej follow each other is an important paragraph 
in educational doctrine. 

First, and most obviously, growth of intelligence im- 
plies an increase in the number of one's experiences. 
This is the simplest and most commonly observed form. 
However psychology may explain the so-called " posses- 
sions " of mind, experience accumulates. Every work- 
ing hour adds to tlie intellectual acquisitions and reac- 
tions, most, or many of which, are saved in a revivable 
way. Very early the child adds to his first sense- 
impressions a knowledge of his language, the forms 
of speech and word-symbols ; people and their behavior 
and occupations; natural phenomena and their simple 
explanations; tools and implements, and social codes; 
ideals of conduct and the proprieties, and practical 
rights; local historical and institutional happenings 
and order; and an acquaintance with his o^vn capabili- 
ties and interests. As formal instruction progresses in 
keeping with his own maturity, he acquires a store of 
images of literature and the race's achievement, and 
the conclusions of science, and the results of invention 
and industry ; of story, and heroism, and adventure ; of 
travel, and distant peoples, and other times ; most of 
which, perhaps, will be irretrievably lost to accustomed 
use, but much of which remains as recoverable experi- 
ence in the daily life. 

Altogether apart from the increased power to 
think, and to do, and to enjoy, there is, with most 
persons, an increasing stock of knowledge. If this 



The Growth of Intelligence 319 

be real knowledge of type forms and held by the 
understanding, it represents far more possible in- 
sights and interests than the actual knowledge stands 
for itself. Through reflection and the mind's store of 
general notions, many other facts are interpretable upon 
occasion. All this represents one very important order 
of growth of intelligence. It is the scholarship aspect 
of education, and regards knowledge, abundant knowl- 
edge, as a legitimate end in training. Most schooling 
exalts tliis aspect, and the only mistake, if there be one, 
is in failing to recognize that it is one aspect only ; very 
important, not to be disregarded, but to be carefully 
conserved. 

]^ot less important than scholarship in characteriz- 
ing the stages in intellectual education is the implica- 
tion that there is also an increase in the complexity 
of experience. While the first cliaracteristic named 
determines ivhat shall be included in a course of study, 
this goes far, especially in the elementary schools, to 
fix the order of exercises. In the somewhat pedantic and 
over-technical, but accurate, phrase of Herbert Spen- 
cer, the invariable order of experience, in the individ- 
ual, as in the race, is " from the simple, the homoge- 
neous and the indefinite, to the complex, the heteroge- 
neous and the definite." In the natural order, and 
therefore, of necessity, in any prescribed order, the 
simpler, easier, more vague, and less mixed experi- 
ences come first; what lies nearest tO' the child or to 
primitive necessities — these seem to him to be most 
available, perhaps, because most appealing. The more 



320 Science of Education 

difficult, because more intricate, processes follow in 
their order. 

Mind reveals its growth by being somewhat regu- 
larly more able to meet the more difficult tasks. In 
the nature of mind it is evident that, from day 
to day, there will be no appreciable increase in this 
power. But gro^vth of mind means this, not less surely 
than it means increase of knowledge. This appears in 
the later development of the complex emotions ; in the 
slow taking on of higher standards of conduct and 
motives of life ; and in the complexity of interests in 
adult years, as compared with childhood. 

Because of this trait of mind, the history for children 
is chiefly by story, picturesque and sketchy, descriptive, 
personal, and practically without the time element. 
Gradually, the personal element gives place to the insti- 
tutional ; occurrences are related in time ; causes and ef- 
fects are observed and traced ; and a stream of human 
endeavor is discovered. The material of the study at 
both extremes is much the same. The difference lies 
in the way the mind is able to use them. The appai'- 
ently unrelated observations of nature also, and the 
obvious meanings assigned by the primitive mind, and 
by the child, become in time, for both of them, the com- 
plex whole of systematic science with its rational ex- 
planations, its laws, and its predictions. The same 
thing is true of language knowledge, of literature, of 
art and the arts, of conduct and ideals. First knowl- 
edge is vague, scrappy, of surface phenomena, and indi- 
vidual. As applied to the understanding, growth of 



The Growth of Intelligence 321 

mind means an increase in power to grasp and unify 
and use experiences of more complex, and, in time, of 
highly complex and interdependent phenomena. The 
programme of directed education finds in this character- 
istic of mind the justification of its order. 

Along with this general process of acquisition, and 
the growth in power over increasing difficulties, and as 
a result of these, has been developed an increasing fa- 
cility in the mental operations. \Miat was done with 
difficulty comes to be done easily; what the mind was 
unable to do, it now accomplishes. Practice in think- 
ing has made thinking ready. Much seeing has re- 
moved obstructions to seeing. To have used any given 
knowledge many times makes its use automatic. Much 
memorizing and reproducing reduces the difficulty of 
remembering. By making many kites, the knowledge 
of the successive steps in kite-making is promptly at 
call when needed ; not necessarily or generally going 
repeatedly over the same routine, but using many times 
and in various ways the same elements or tlie principal 
elements involved in the routine. Drill in reading — 
while learning to read — does not mean reading the 
same selection often, but the reading of many selec- 
tions of the same grade of difficultly, using practically 
the same vocabulary and similar ideas, under different 
themes. A lesson in geography is not best learned by 
repeated conning of the one paragraph about a river 
valley, but rather working up from various points of 
view the simple story of the river valley. 

What is needed is a ready acquaintance with words — 



322 Science of Education 

a garment for thought — not a set of words as a garment 
for a set thought. This characteristic of mind under- 
lies the exercise called drill. Facility comes through 
repeated doing. Facility in thinking through much 
thinking, not the pretence of it; facility in calculation 
through much use of numbers ; facility in interpreting 
soil conditions from interpreting soil conditions ; grace 
in bodily carriage through practising a graceful car- 
riage ; strength and confidence in initiative through ex- 
ercising one's initiative, not continued imitation. Mani- 
fold acquaintance with any well-defined reaction will in 
time fix a habit ; and habit is facile and comfortable. 

When one considers the enormous increase of experi- 
ences with the passing years, and the successively 
harder tasks imposed upon the mind, it is apparent that 
this provision, whereby it is able to fund its experi- 
ences for easy and profitable returns without its con- 
stant care, is a generous one. The increasing facility 
is an economy of both time and energy and greatly adds 
to the product of the mind's conscious effort. Growth 
of mind implies for all of its functions an increase in 
the facility with which the accustomed processes go on. 
In society and in the individual, facility of doing and 
thinking underlies all convention. 

Both as an accompaniment and a resultant of the 
three processes already named, there has been devel- 
oped an increased accuracy and precision. The change 
in both life and mind from the indefinite to the defi- 
nite is one of the characteristic movements of all evo- 
lution. The change is a noticeable and important one 



The Growth of Intelligence 323 

in tLe culture of the intellect. In all exchange, whether 
of marketable values or ideas, accuracy is much to be 
coveted. But in the educational process all function- 
ing is to be encouraged, though it be far from definite. 
The value of drawing and pattern work; of observa- 
tion and description ; of vocal expression ; of discover- 
ing and interpreting causes among earth phenomena ; of 
tracing movements in history, is not to be measured by 
the accuracy of the picture or design, the truthfulness 
of the description, the perfect rendering of the selec- 
tion read, the correct proportioning of causes and ef- 
fects in a geographical exercise, or right influences in 
historical studies, but in the effort to find the truth and 
to utter it fairly. 

Among the qualities of the mind, accuracy is of 
late birth. And yet no system of procedure is good, 
is safe, that does not provide for and secure such 
accuracy as the accumulated experience ^varrants. 
The accuracy of the adult must not be expected of 
the child, any more than the accuracy of the child 
would be accepted as an adult standard. That, at every 
stage of the child's growth, he shall be held responsible 
for all the definiteness of discrimination, and clear- 
ness of imagery, and reliability of judgments, and per- 
fection of memory, which his attainments and matu- 
rity justify, and no more, is a fundamental principle in 
sound pedagogy. 

Just as it would be obviously unfair to estimate 
the pupil's accuracy of thinking in terms of the 
teacher's exactitude, so it is unfair to measure one child 



324 Science of Education 

by the standard of another child's precision. That 
is, it is more important that each one perform his task 
as well as he can than that he be rated high or low, ac- 
cording to some arbitrary or inferior or superior stand- 
ard. The standard for each one is the best he is able 
to accept for his ideal. Each day, or month, or year 
should raise his ideal, and carry him beyond his former 
ideals in accuracy, not less than in quantity of experi- 
ence. Growth of mind implies an increasing definite- 
ness of the mental processes. 

Much of the improvement noted in the four preced- 
ing paragraphs, it has doubtless already been inferred, 
is because of the growing control which has been exer- 
cised over the mental acts. Indeed, one of the most im- 
portant and fruitful changes in the intellectual life is 
this of more constant and efficient regulation of the sev- 
eral activities. Child life is peculiarly volatile, inarticu- 
late and transient. It is concerned with the moment, 
and changes with the moment. Connectedness of think- 
ing, the purposed persistence of interests, the holding 
over of plans and following them up for successive 
days, inhibitions of passion and temper, directed and 
orderly observation and research, doing self-appointed 
tasks and holding to the purpose, are all helpful in the 
cultivation of a habit of controlling one's activities. 
These all come slowly. The child's judgments are at 
first spontaneous and unthinking. So is the action of 
the memory. Children remember surprisingly well. 
Almost no child recollects. Many pupils of six to eight 
years of age will, upon a slender suggestion even, re- 



The Growth of Intelligence 325 

member and relate incidents or whole exercises of the 
day, or of days, before; but few of them will be able 
voluntarily to recall even the most striking occurrences, 
though only a few hours away. They remember, but 
do not recall. They have startlingly clear insights, but 
few reasoned judgments. 

Growth implies an increasing control of all the 
processes of the mind; there must come observation 
instead of mere seeing ; association by thought relations, 
not merely of nearness in time and place ; a grip upon 
experience that makes reproduction to be something 
more than reminiscence ; reasoned conclusions, not 
insights only; the mastery of the feelings, not subjec- 
tion to them. The approach to this regulated life, it 
need scarcely be said, is a journey of slow stages, a 
matter of years ; indeed, one accomplished by few, and 
by many barely undertaken, and too often soon aban- 
doned. But it is the ideal ; and little growth can occur 
in any of the other ways, if this fail. Growth of mind 
implies an increasing power and habit of control of its 
ways. 

Finally, in this natural history of mind there is a 
well-defined tendency toward the integTation of its ex- 
periences. All revivability is by means of threads, or 
groups, or clusters of experiences ; not of isolated ideas 
or impressions. One form of this tendency appears in 
what is known as association — the binding together of 
experiences according to certain laws. So surely is this 
integration regarded as fundamental, that it has been 
said : " If not thought with each other, things are not 



326 Science of Education 

thought at all." For one reason or another, because of 
one principle or another, detached experiences, each 
a strand or series of reactions, are found to be worked 
into a fabric or body of experience. " The weaving 
together of the elements of experience," says Mr. 
Sully * " (which is necessary to the veiy idea of ex- 
perience as a system of connected parts), begins from 
the earliest moment, and runs on pari passu with the 
other processes " (discrimination and assimilation). 
" Not only all our intellectual pleasures and pains," 
says Dr. Priestley, " but all the phenomena of memory, 
imagination, volition, reasoning, and every other 
mental affection and operation, are but different modes 
or cases of the association of ideas." 

It was the conception of Hume that the " laws of 
association fill a place in the world of mind similar 
to the universal law of gravitation in the physical 
world." ]S[ow things are associated in thought through 
likeness or difference, through contiguity, through 
coexistence, through relations of whole and part, 
cause and effect, means and end, signs and things 
signified, work and worker, force and phenomena, 
thing and quality, container and content, etc. All 
of these Professor James would reduce to the one 
relation of succession ; that " there is no other ele- 
mentary causal law of association than the law of 
neural habit All the materials of our thought are due 
to the way in which one elementary process of the cer- 
ebral hemispheres tends to excite whatever other ele- 
* " The Human Mind," i, p. 185. 



The Growth of Intelligence 327 

mentary process it may have excited at some former 
time," 

It is not meant here to consider or argue how 
this integration takes place, but to set forth the fact 
as marking one form of intellectual gro^vth. In child- 
hood, and well along into youth, and for some persons 
always, the cohesion of experiences is weak, and inade^ 
quate for any except the simplest revivals. Interests 
are fickle and easily evaporate, connections unstable, 
and reproduction uncertain. But with real mental 
growth there comes a certain solidarity of mind that 
stands for manifold and definite associations. The 
mind acts as a whole and as a constantly changing 
whole. Each new day's experiences have somehow 
combined with all former experiences to constitute a 
new whole of reaction. 

" Every thought we have of a given fact is," 
says Professor James,* " strictly speaking, unique, 
and only bears a resemblance of kind with our 
other thoughts of the same fact. When the identi- 
cal fact recurs, we must think of it in a fresh manner, 
see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend it 
in different relations from those in which it last ap- 
peared. . . . Often we are ourselves struck at the 
strange differences in our successive views of the same 
thing. We wonder how we could have opined as we did 
last month about a certain matter. We have outgrown 
the possibility of that state of mind, we know not how. 
From one year to another we see things in new lights. 

* " Psychology," i, p. 233. 



S2S Science of Education 

What was unreal has grown real ; what was exciting is 
now insipid. . . . Experience is remoulding us every 
moment, and our mental reaction on every given thing 
is really a resultant of our experience of the whole 
world up to date." This is mental integrity. The re- 
action of the mind is the reaction of the whole mind. 
There is implied not only co-operation among the par- 
ticular experiences, but effective co-operation among 
the three functions. 

In all educational progress there is implied an 
increasing solidarity of mind, or an integrity of 
the mind's experiences and reactions; an habitual 
concert of effort, and mutual consistency of effect. 
There are no " branch " functions and divided in- 
terests. All experiences are under one management. 
They begin to work as a unit, not as a house divided 
against itself; a phalanx of forces operating under a 
like incentive and having a common purpose. It is an 
ideal situation, but an ideal which is vitalizing to in- 
struction. It is a tendency of the mind that is not to be 
artificially bestowed upon it, but a native one to be 
encouraged; a disposition — an active disposition — of 
the several functions to act as one, and of experiences 
to fuse, and of interests to coalesce. The connecting 
and grouping of exercises in such way as to strengthen 
and reinforce this tendency is the part of wisdom. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
ETHICAL RELATIONS 

The Science of Education derives yet other material 
from Ethics or the Science of Social Rights. 

It has been noted elsewhere * that one tendency of 
education, whether directed or incidental, is to moral- 
ize the life ; the ideal being that one shall come habitu- 
ally to recognize and apply in one's living the moral 
factor in experience. For reasons that will be obvious 
to all, there is not included here a consideration of the 
religious ^spect of morality. That belongs properly to 
another inquiry. IvTeither is it the purpose to elabo- 
rate or suggest a system of ethics. As the science of 
education assumes a psychology and takes note of its 
pedagogical bearings, so it accepts the system of ethics 
as worked out by philosophy, and uses so much of its 
conclusions as is determinative of educational doc- 
trine. The present discussion does not set itself to 
solve " that most difficult of all problems, how the claims 
of the Individual and of Society can be reconciled." f 
It seeks only to discover and to incorporate into the 
science of education the principles that may be useful 

• See p. 227. 

f Maurice. " Social Morality," p. 18. 
329 



330 Science of Education 

for guidance. Along with the conviction that ethics 
ought to throw important light on pedagogics, Mr. Mac- 
kenzie concludes * that " the question as to what 
qualities it is most desirable to evoke and strengthen 
must obviously depend on our view of the qualities 
which good citizens ought to possess, and generally on 
our view of the ethical end." Considered in a descrip- 
tive and approximate rather than a critical way, the 
nature of the ethical principle comprises : 

The manners and customs of a society giving rise 
to forms of etiquette, and the conventional orders 
of intercourse. The term " ethics " is derived from 
the Greek word meaning, primarily, character; but in 
its etymology connotes also custom or habit, just as 
the Latin mores, from which we get our word moral- 
ity, means customs, habits or manners. And the sci- 
ence so named is concerned to discover and to set forth 
the rules and principles on which men habitually act 
in their congregate relations, and " the rightness or 
wrongness of these principles." These assume the form 
of more or less established " codes," such as rules of 
courtesy; caste and class relations; forms of respect.; 
the behavior of inferiors, children and other depend- 
ents ; the etiquette of courts and diplomacy ; codes of 
honor, etc. About those who have a sense of nicety of 
behavior, these conventional rules, operating in a mixed 
society, throw an efficient and delicate protection 
against boorishness and over-reaching; and '' it is often, 
perhaps, well that the impulses of a man's own heart 
* "Manual of Ethics," p. 29. 



Ethical Relations 331 

should be checked by certain generally understood con- 
ventions." Such prohibitions sometimes afford security 
to decency and privacy that is most enjoyable. Tech- 
nically, they mean consideration for others, if not al- 
ways respect, and not infrequently a respect conse- 
quent upon consideration, and stand for social adjust- 
ment and cooperation. Most of them have or have had 
in their origin a purpose to subserve some common 
good. Often carried to an excess of formalism, as a 
body they yet represent an ideal of behavior toward 
which one phase of ethical culture points. 

Legislation also gives form and direction to the re- 
lations called civic, as govermnental administration 
sets and interprets standards of political relations. 
Here arise notions of personal rights and property 
rights, and*tax responsibilities, and debts, and public 
property, and public service, and corporate functions, 
and contracts, and property transfers ; of civic justice, 
and crimes and punishment; and official codes of au- 
thority and privilege, and official responsibility, and cit- 
izen sovereignty and privilege, etc. Statutes and or- 
dinances, in undertaking to say what citizens may and 
may not do, as members of a civil community, set 
standards by which many presume to judge what is 
right and not right. In his own life, touching many 
matters, the individual easily comes to accept as right 
what the law prescribes or allows, and condemns what 
the law prohibits or what he cannot evade. Citizen- 
ship comes to mean what the practice of the government 
crystallizes in its doings. 



332 Science of Education 

The laws are an expression of public sentiment 
in most Western, i.e., European and American, even 
monarchic societies ; not an expression of the high- 
est intelligence or most orderly, nor of the lowest, 
but of an upper large majority of all. And it 
would seem to be the function of all legislation, as it 
is its history, so to enact its various codes that to-mor- 
row they will not be needed. The many would live up 
to the spirit of most laws, even without prohibitions; 
the few grow up to enacted standards that were onco 
beyond their practice. Both the laws made and the 
laws enforced, as well as the manner of their enforce- 
ment, become a means of education in a most effective 
way. Legislatures and courts and executives of every 
grade are teachers, whose tuition never ceases. The 
school term is twelve months in the year. It reaches 
the home and the office, the street and farm, society 
and the sanctuary, old and young, both sexes and all 
races, every industry and philosophy and policy. Ad- 
justment of conduct to their requirements is the main 
part of civic life. The increasingly better adjustment is 
civic education. That the adjustment is such as to call 
for less, and again less, severe laws implies that the 
civic growth is in the line of education — real gain in 
self-directiveness, not mere training. So the civic 
order itself, combining with the school, becomes a 
means of raising the level of citizenship through its re- 
actions upon the individual. 

The ethical principle includes also in its purview 
the system of organized industry, and the attendant 



Ethical Relations 333 

trade relations, involving the responsibilities and priv- 
ileges of employer and employed ; the individual and 
his guild ; wages and the conditions of labor ; contracts 
and tenure of employment ; industrial habits ; the mu- 
tual fidelity of the Avorkman and his employer ; all of 
which, through wide-spread organization, have become 
very complicated, and their influence upon the individ- 
ual far-reaching. Upon many points the several in- 
dustrial bodies undertake to speak for their members. 
Standards of conduct in trade relations are prescribed. 
Some of them have elaborate codes of directions and 
prohibitions. The organization comes to be an active 
means of education, both to members and employers. 
The distribution of trade and technical literature, society 
news publications, and the public discussion of class 
interests, greatly encourage the influence. Here, again, 
for the members as a body, and for individuals, in labor 
relations, right is taken to be, at its best estate, what 
the law requires, or, perhaps, what it allows ; or even 
what may be wrested from it and from the employer, 
in the interest of the members. Conversely, for the 
employer, and in a measure for the capitalistic class, 
touching these same trade relations, right too often 
comes to be what the law permits or does not expressly 
prohibit, or what may be won by contest. 

On both sides there has gro^vn up, between the two, and 
among themselves, a by no means simple code, obedience 
to which is insisted upon. The requirement is not as be^ 
tween man and man, but concerns them as artisans, and 
as factors of an industrial machine. But even with- 



334 Science of Education 

out this voluntary organization of operatives into so- 
cieties, and employers into leagues, the industrial code 
fixes similar relations for all who toil, and for all who 
are interested in its returns. The conventions of labor 
must be learned and practised, otherwise one becomes 
outcast. They are quite as exacting as are other codes, 
and generally have a wholesome influence. 

Then there are the formal institutions and the sev- 
eral agencies of learning, with the accompanying pro- 
fessional relations. Besides the instructional and stu- 
dent relations, the society of a school or college is unique 
and more or less stratified. Fraternities, associations, 
moral, athletic, publishing and other interests ; under- 
graduate and graduate classes ; the different " schools " 
or departments; new-comers and upper class-men; the 
two sexes ; social functions and the common life, mul- 
tiply conventional restraints and complicate the social 
order. Both among themselves and with one another, 
the various academic groups have their codes and com- 
pacts, their limitations of privilege and enforcement of 
duties; and the society, as a whole, so democratic, is 
broken into groups and more or less exclusive organiza- 
tions, with differing functions and appropriate rules. 

Next to the formal tuition of the lecture room, this 
social intercourse, after formal procedure, is the great 
educational factor in college life. It gives a certain 
breadth of view as to social responsibilities, tempers 
the self-assumptions of youth, facilitates knowledge ex- 
change, and stimulates the feeling of considerateness. 
What is true of a college community is more or less 



Ethical Relations 335 

true of every conununity that has a distinct life chiefly 
among its membership — as a secluded village, a fron- 
tier settlement, a farming community, etc. Partly be- 
cause of tlieir origin in the schools, and partly because 
of the technical character of their services, the three 
traditional professions have developed their respective 
codes also — as the medical code of ethics, the clerical 
code of ethics, and the attorney's code — the other occu- 
pations showing similar conventions, as the ethical code 
of business, codes of railway and other travel; all of 
which are simply modes of adjusting otherwise con- 
flicting claims of the individual and the group. These 
may be " minor morals," as they have been named, but 
they are moral both in constitution and effect ; and obe- 
dience to them is the beginning of a rich ethical life, that 
increases both happiness and efficiency. 

Summarizing, then: comprised in the ethical princi- 
ple there are forms of politeness and gentility, systems 
of civic and political duties, industrial, sodality, med- 
ical, clerical, and judicial codes. And these codes are 
society's covenants of protection among its members. 
Certain of their requirements may seem artificial, some 
puerile, some tyrannous, others needless ; but on the 
whole, they are vastly important, and the influence sal- 
utary. They furnish a standard of conduct that is an 
ideal to many, a protection to others, obstructive to few. 
On the negative side, the codes afford formal justifica- 
tion for all acts not expressly forbidden by them. 
Speaking pedagogically, the function of the school is to 
fit the individual for intelligent service in the several 



336 Science of Education 

institutions named, under these codes; that the life of 
each may be strengthened and perfected by this cooper- 
ation with all, through these and similar conventions. 

The ethical principle means then, in general, to do 
good, not to do evil ; to do the fit, the suitable thing, 
according to one's highest sense of the right and suit- 
able; to treat others as they should be^ treated, if we 
were those others. Confucius (born 551 b. c.) said: 
" What you do not like when done to yourself, do not 
do to others " ; and the liberal, scholarly, wise Hillel 
(dying 10 a. d.), known as Hillel the Great, had said 
in early manhood, and fifty years before the Christian 
era, practically tlie same thing. He maintained that 
the object of the law is peace and good-will ; therefore, 
the principal law is, " Whatever would hurt thee, thou 
shalt do to none," and added thereto the most expressive 
words, " this is the principal ; the rest (of the law) is 
its commentary ; go and finish." * 

But both of these were negative, as most early max- 
ims for both the race and the individual are negative. 
The l^azarene's counsel was positive and comprehen- 
sive of social obligations, not avoidance of selfislmess 
only : " All things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to tliem : for this is the law and 
the prophets." Here was a new spirit; though it ap- 
pears from the words of Jesus Himself that it was a 
development of a former teaching of the schools, as the 
race's later altruism has come by gradual evolution from 

* See " History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth," I. M. 
Wise, p. 217. 



Ethical Relations 337 

an early eye-for-an-eye conception ; or as the selfishness 
of youth grows into the considerateness of age. 

The most common and commonly accepted philosoph- 
ical statement of this same maxim is the famous " cate- 
gorical imperative " of Kant : " Act so that the maxim 
of thy conduct shall be fit to be the universal law " ; or, 
as it is elsewhere given, " Act only on that maxim (or 
principle) which thou canst at the same time will to 
become universal law." * And Herbert Spencer also, 
about 1850, in an attempt to state fairly " the liberty 
of each as limited only by the like liberties of all," con- 
cludes f with much the same meaning, that " every 
man is free to do that which he wills, provided he in- 
fringes not the equal freedom of any other man." :}: 

So fundamental does this conception seem in any mo- 
bile community life, that one might well have been sur- 
prised had not the great moralists and the religious 
and ethical teachers of the world given it formulation. 
And whether it emanate from China or Jewry or Jesus, 
what can it matter ? The dictum finds its truth in the 
human constitution, not in the words uttered. It is valid 
because it meets a need, up to which, as toward an ideal, 
the race has been slowly growing. The maxim may be 
very simply stated, is interpretable by all grades of intel- 
ligence, and is applicable to the various ethical relations. 
There is " a growing conception of the mutual influence 

* " Metaphysics of Morals," Section II. 
f " Principles of Ethics," ii, p. 46. 

J For a comparison of his own and Kant's phrasing of this law see 
Herbert Spencer's " Principles of Ethics," vol. ii, p. 437. 



338 Science of Education 

of all men, and of all classes of men ; that we are all parts 
of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every 
other ; that we are bound up in one bundle of life with 
all men, and cannot live an isolated life if we would; 
that we are made on so large a plan that we 
cannot come to our best alone; that this entering into 
the life of others is not only a help in my life, it is the 
help, the one means, the indispensable, the essential con- 
dition of all largeness of life ; it is the very meaning of 
life— life itself." * 

In the Science of Social Rights the relations of social 
classes also have profound pedagogical significance. 
After devoting several pages to the nature of the vir- 
tues and to characterizing them as relative only, to 
commandments and various states of society, Mr. Mac- 
kenzie adds : f " Not only, however, are the virtues rel- 
ative to different times and different social conditions ; 
they are also relative to the functions that different in- 
dividuals have to fulfil in society. . . . It is on the 
whole true that tlie virtues which we respect and ad- 
mire in a man are not quite the same as those of a 
woman; that those of the rich are not quite the same 
as those of the poor; that those of an old man are not 
quite the same as those of a young man ; those of a par- 
ent not quite the same as those of a child; those of a 
man in health not quite the same as those of one who 
is sick; those of a commercial man not quite the same 
as those of a man of science." 

*King. " Theology and the Social Consciousness," pp. 13, 14. 
f " Manual of Ethics,^' p. 21G. 



Ethical Relations 339 

For most or perhaps all of these groups one may 
accept the discriminations made. There are, how- 
ever, other lines of social cleavage which, in this 
country at least, seem important from the point of 
view of education, and which are omitted from the 
list. Some such are the law-abiding and the way- 
ward (not necessarily criminal) classes, whose inter- 
ests — differing interests — must enter into every count 
in a representative society like ours; the normally 
constituted and the defective classes, the deaf-mutes, 
the blind, the feeble of mind, the impotents and 
vagrants, the relatively dependent, and, in some cases, 
a parasitic, unproductive class; the educated and the 
wholly or substantially illiterate, which is a very differ- 
ent grouping for the United States, from the tradesman 
and scientist noted in the quotation ; the employed and 
the leisure, which will be recognized as different from 
the productive and unproductive classes mentioned 
above; official and privat-e citizen; and the ecclesiastic 
and layman. To the last might be added, perhaps, the 
teacher also and the layman. 

The difference between the two groups of a pair 
vary greatly in the dozen pairs named. But, in 
general, the author's distinction holds good, that the 
common social codes bear differently upon the dif- 
ferent groups. In the way of social cooperation, 
and refinement, and intelligence, and public responsi- 
bility, and civic service and energy, society does ex- 
pect more from some than from others. This is not 
a recognition of nor an argument for any artificial 



340 Science of Education 

stratification of society, based upon supposed inequali- 
ties of merit, but a simple presentation of the fact 
that, in the massing of population, the different social 
conditions arising impose unlike responsibilities and 
grant unlike privileges that show a reasonable corre- 
spondence. 

Individuals often blunder in their treatment of 
other individuals, now disregarding, now exalting, 
because of some social badge or distinction; but 
society as a whole does not. And if the religious or 
secular teacher, or the savant, or the parent, or the law- 
abiding, or man of learning, finds public expectation 
of his behavior exacting, there is probably some rea- 
son in the existing social order to justify it. In most 
nations of Western civilization the prevailing cleavages 
are the product of generations of slow evolution. They 
have as little of the character of the manufactured 
article as have any social conditions. 



CHAPTER XXV 
ETHICAL RELATIONS (Continued) 

The pedagogical relations of the classes named in 
the last chapter are fixed in the essential nature of edu- 
cation. 

Primarily (keeping in mind tlie distinction between 
education and schooling), the process of education is 
the same for all classes. The orders of growth, the se- 
quence of steps, the kinds of stimuli, the beginnings 
of experience in sense products, the conditions of right 
thinking and feeling and knowing, the dependence upon 
personal effort, must be the same for both sexes and 
all ages, for the rich and poor, for worker and para- 
site, for the normal and the defective (excepting in 
sense conditions), for the law-abiding and the wayward. 
Both philosophically and as bearing upon school ad- 
ministration the acceptance of this fact is important. 
i Because a natural process, all education is equally 
(of right) the privilege of all, i.e., each is entitled to 
such encouragement to improvement as he is fitted to 
receive, to make him the best possible citizen of his 
generation, stimulating him to his best effort, and hold- 
ing before him the most available high ideals of right 
living. Neither the means nor the scope of training 

841 



342 Science of Education 

will be the same necessarily for the two groups of any 
pair — for the two sexes, for the tradesman and the pro- 
fessional, for the undeveloped races and the highly 
civilized, for the feeble of mind and the strong, for 
adults and minors. But the right of each to the best 
that he can become is, from the nature of the ethical 
principle, a valid contention. ]^o class that is " down " 
may safely be kept do\vn if there be the instinct to rise. 

In a society, furtlier, of free intellectual and indus- 
trial activity the tendency of this natural process, if it 
be conceded a share in wise direction, is to obliterate, 
or at least readjust, class distinctions. Many of the 
feeble of mind become self -helpful in simple ways; 
the deaf-mutes and the blind become productive and 
self -entertaining ; wayward youth that have come under 
wise treatment have been reclaimed ; tlie laborer, 
through means of adult instruction, has often risen to 
influence and breadth of interest; and laymen have be- 
come critical of religious creeds and legal codes, and 
sanitary requirements, and sound in conduct, on the 
level of the priest and the jurist and the medical prac- 
titioner. 

'No conception of modern pedagogy is truer to 
fact or safer in principle than this, that the vital 
function of public schooling is to raise the level of so- 
ciety in conduct and ideals. This is done, primarily, 
by improving the individual and for his individual 
need; but for the common good also, the incompetent 
are to be made competent; the ignorant, intelligent; 
the plodder, skilful; the spendthrift, prudent; the 



Ethical Relations 343 

wayward, law-abiding; the rude and selfish, consider- 
ate. A society is not to be considered strong, there- 
fore, simply because there are in it no social classes, 
but because all classes are rising. The school, also, 
should reach every grade of efficiency and intelligence 
and morals to the end that, the old lines of distinction 
being broken, there may be attained the mobility that 
brings hope and content, a moving equilibrium that 
means life and vigor. In his own interest certainly, 
each is to be given a chance — the school's chance — to 
make the most of himself ; but in the interest of society, 
and with all of its foresight and resources for wise di- 
rection, ability must be sought in every social class and 
brought to the surface to have the chance, too, which 
ability may claim, that society at large may not fail 
of any exceptional service. Keither birth nor breeding, 
nor early connections, nor social antecedents should 
stand in the way of any helpful redistribution of effi- 
ciency — certainly not the conventional class distinc- 
tions named. Of all the regenerative means at the call 
of society, education is the most efficient, inasmuch as 
it tends to break up the ruts of caste and hopeless in- 
difference ; to meet the " call of the wild." 

Among the several social classes also influences are 
mutual though not equal, hence a state of society that 
is bad for any considerable class is bad for all classes; 
and, equally, the education that really benefits one class 
is a common good. An ignorant, irresponsible serving 
class obstructs progress and makes labor wasteful; 
scheming political leaders increase the purchasable 



344 Science of Education 

vote; neglect of public morals undermines common 
peace and safety; oppression of the farm impoverishes 
the city; inadequate transportation discourages produc- 
tion and cheapens comforts : so an education of the pew 
is a stimulus to the pulpit ; self-respecting labor means 
civic progress and manifold comforts; the gift of self- 
help to the needy confers moral worth upon both those 
who give and those who receive ; the exalting of woman- 
hood has greatly improved the qualities of manhood ; 
the reforms of Five Points and the slums make all life 
safer and health surer ; the city, first to profit from in- 
vention, soon reflects its sense of comfort and leisure 
upon the hamlet and the frontier; a wise, impeccable 
ruling class would do much to allay unrest and dis- 
courage civic crookedness. 

Society is a whole, and, however we may try to 
persuade ourselves, acts as a whole; it is a consti- 
tutional aggregate, all of whose parts must be taken 
into account in any attempt to improve or admin- 
ister its functions. Its best and its worst elements 
do not act independently, though they may be hos- 
tile. In the expediencies of public affairs the stand 
taken by either is fixed for it by that of the other. In 
a large measure each party is what it is because others 
are what they are, and not one set of " others " alone, 
but many groups at times who are otherwise minded. 
" A vote of all the people," . . . says Judge Biddle,* 
" reflects all the knowledge, judgment, skill, courage, 
tastes, interests, wants, passions, hopes and fears of a 
* " Elements of Knowledge," p. 125. 



Ethical Relations ■ 345 

nation, and this is the only source from which mlers 
can ascertain what they have to deal with. A vote of all 
the wisest and best, if they could be ascertained, would 
be an unsafe guide, for it would leave the most danger- 
ous element of government concealed. A vote solely 
of all tlie property holders, or of the moral, or of the 
religious, or of any other class would be just as defective 
and an unsafe guide for the ruler. IsTo one class of 
men can represent another class, much less can they 
represent a nation." The education that benefits one 
class must be accorded to individuals of whatever other 
class capable of receiving and using it. Reform is to 
be had, not by ignoring a disturbing class, but by im- 
proving it. Capacity only (not class connections) 
should bar one from its privileges. 

Among all social classes children and youth are most 
directly concerned in the educational movement. Their 
presence in a community conditions institutional life in 
various ways. The birth-rate in conjunction with the 
death-rate is an index to the prosperity of a people. 
Their presence in a family changes a mere home to a 
working household. They constitute an element in tlie 
motive for accumulating property. In all congested 
populations they are a constant and more or less dis- 
turbing factor in industry, and, incidentally, in legis- 
lation upon child labor and factory conditions. They 
are a chief concern of the church. The modem school, 
not excluding college, is wholly in their interest. The 
movement for compulsory school attendance is incident 
to this need. Reformatories, homes and industrial in- 



346 Science of Education 

stitutions are correctional of their waywardness. The 
statute-books are filled with enactments that concern 
them. Laws upon minors, guardianship, the descent of 
property, parental responsibility, and especially educa- 
tion, have the same meaning. 

Out of probably 80,000,000 people in the United 
States there are about 25,000,000 children between 
five and eighteen years of age. Approximately, 16,- 
000,000 children and youth are in the schools. For 
their benefit $600,000,000 are permanently invested 
in school properties. Nearly $250,000,000 are spent 
annually to maintain these schools. About two-thirds 
of this sum come from State and local taxes. Di- 
rectly or indirectly the influence of the system is 
upon every other institution. Upon its service de- 
pends in large degree the character of the coming 
civilization ; whether the existing culture and efficiency 
shall be maintained or raised. At all times, people 
who have come to political or industrial greatness have 
exhibited a public interest in the youth of the genera- 
tion. Such nation has not always been careful to secure 
to them the child rights as members of the several social 
institutions. Often they have been exploited in the 
interests of adult life, especially among highly indus- 
trial and dense populations. As a class, being dependent 
and artless, they are easily submerged, and as their inter- 
est in productive affairs is projected into the future, they 
are likely to be overlooked in the presence of seemingly 
more urgent interests. 

Theoretically it is true, outside of government which 



Ethical Relations 347 

concerns present good order and equitable relations be- 
tween citizens, it is conceded that liiiman activity is 
chiefly that the successive generations shall be well 
brought to adulthood ; that parents toil in order that the 
future of the family may be provided for; the church 
labors to win the young, when alone they may be won 
in their youth ; the family, that, through them, the in- 
tegrity of the home may be conserved. 

But practically in the home, and the church, and the 
shop, and in society the child is tolerated in various ways 
or forgotten. The furnishings and conveniences, and 
customs of going and coming in the home are all collected 
and enforced with the elders in view. In society the 
standards of conduct and courtesy and privilege are adult 
standards. In the church there are few services for the 
children. Until very recent years there was no litera- 
ture for them, and for long no adapted texts. Just 
as the child in the home may be held to be as respectful 
and courteous to his own parents as to the heads of 
neighbor families — not allowing his presumption of 
sympathy to blind him to social obligations — so the 
mother should maintain the same considerate courtesy 
toward her own child that she shows and feels toward 
a strange child, not forgetting the considerateness that 
is due him as a human being. If unfairness of social 
treatment is wrong to my neighbor, it is wrong to a 
member of my household. And the ethical imperative 
demands fairness of speech and manner and heart 
toward others, all others, children not excluded, as one 
would expect it for himself. Such treatment is not to 



348 Science of Education 

be regarded as antagonistic to right training of them 
for manhood, but as a form of right training. 

The educational influence of the institutions shows 
itself primarily upon the people at large, but may be 
traced also upon individuals. It has already been sug- 
gested that the individual acquires, and has constant 
need for, a familiar acquaintance with the conventional 
forms of language, custom, and etiquette that are in- 
cident to community and social life. The citizenship 
relations are other conventionalities that form an essen- 
tial part of every one's education, as are the ways of the 
home and the requirements incident to one's place in 
the household; that one shall become conversant with 
the formal requirements and apply himself to practise 
them in daily life. He has need to acquire also habits 
of self-dependence, thrift and foresight, quickness of 
perception, substantial judgment. These the race has 
mainly achieved through its industries as similar traits 
are attained to-day. 

Briefly, and mainly by way of illustration, attention 
is here called to the educational significance of the in- 
dustries. This does not seem to have been accorded the 
consideration its importance would justify. It has al- 
ready been mentioned that the race has been educated 
rather by what it has done than by what it has known ; 
or what it has used of what it has known ; by what it 
has come to know through an effort to do. In any 
event, either directly or indirectly, it has come to its 
maturity through its occupation or active interests. It 
is without doubt equally true to-day that men are so edu- 



Ethical Relations 349 

cated, not less through their doing than by reflection, 
though the occupations and interest are complex. 

There could be no more fascinating study in education 
than an inquiry into the influences of present day eco- 
nomic and industrial activities upon man himself, the 
effect upon general intelligence, and susceptibility to the 
higher emotions and sentiments, and the sense of civic 
responsibility, and the domestic interests, and estimates 
of culture of, for example, the railroad service, work in 
the mines, teaching, preaching, years in the laboratory, 
government clerical service, machine attendance in a 
great factory, the mercantile life, the active manage- 
ment of a well-used library, etc. One cannot do these 
or other things long without himself being made over. 
In respect of what qualities has he been made over, and 
to what extent? Even to-day it is evident that here is 
the chief source of our education beyond the mere rudi- 
ments of culture. But for present pur}X)ses illustra- 
tions will be taken from the race's experience, not from 
current industry. 

While nowhere found to have developed in a serial 
order, the great industrial stages through which man 
has gone from primitive beginnings may fairly be rep- 
resented by: (1) the nut- and fruit-gathering stage; 
(2) the hunting and fishing and predatory life; (3) 
the pastoral state, including the domestication of wild 
animals; (4) the agricultural stage; (5) the man- 
ufacturing stage and the building of cities; (6) the 
commercial age; and (7) the era of professional and 
personal service. The intention is not to discuss these 



350 Science of Education 

various stages ; tliat would belong eitlier to sociology or 
to anthropology; but, assuming more or less detailed 
acquaintance with them, to ask what have been the qual- 
ities of mind and heart which each has contributed to 
man's education, and how these came about ? 

And first of the primitive, simple, and it may be hy- 
pothetical period, called here the nut- and fruit-gath- 
ering stage. From cocoanut and bread-fruit, the 
grasses, leaves and roots, it was not a difficult step to 
the cultivation of plants, especially the edible grasses, 
as wheat, corn, rye and barley, though the step may 
have been a long one. These grains are Ivno^vvm to be 
thousands of years old ; their purposed cultivation 
transcends history. The difference to the man himself 
between taking the food at first-hand from nature and 
taking it by a course of production and care is the dif- 
ference between passive, dependent, aimless living and 
purposed activities. It means watchfulness and some 
planning, a bit of providence, and doubtless rude tools. 
His wants and his da^vning intelligence led to more 
artificial means of securing his food. The invention of 
digging-sticks, and flat-bladed tools, and rude hoes and 
picks was the coordinate of a waxing intelligence. In 
his inevitable conflict with animal enemies he became a 
hunter, and incidentally a fisher. 

In the hunting and fishing and the accompanying 
warlike and predatory habits there is found a more 
active, but, on the whole, a comparatively sluggish and 
irregular life. As the streams and shore waters were 
man's ^' first avenues for the movements of civilization 



Ethical Relations 351 

and industry," shell-fish and other water products may 
have been the most frequent early non-vegetable food, 
even before land game came to be a prominent food 
factor ; the quest required little skill or hardihood, and 
is even yet the chief source of subsistence for the 
Fuegian and a few other wild tribes. But essentially it 
was a life of the chase ; incidentally of war. ISTow was 
involved, with but little display of striking intelligence, 
a good deal of ingenuity and especially cunning. "WHien, 
in the first period, man's relation to the dangerous life 
about him was chiefly defensive, it became now offen- 
sive. The initiative was often, at least, with himself, 
and represents a considerably higher faculty. 

Of still lower grade than the savage, his effort was yet 
sharpened by an incessant want, and wrought an unfold- 
ing of new faculties or apj^lied an old power in new ways. 
Weapons had to be made — the spear, the dart, the bow 
and arrow, the sling, fighting clubs, boats, traps, snares, 
etc. It was impossible that he should do these things, 
and not himself be changed in the doing. There was 
little individuality; the clan or tribe or horde was 
everything; life was more or less despotic on the one 
side, and submissive on the other. But the activities 
developed patience on the hunt; endurance through 
periods of hunger and exposure and danger; courage 
and something of foresight in a knowledge of the habits 
and tempers and uses of the different animals. In the 
uses of fire and the cooking of food also, and the pro- 
viding of shelter, if nothing more tlian a hole in the 
cliff, and simple clothing, and protection against the 



352 Science of Education 

changing seasons, by covering or slielter or migration, 
practical powers were cultivated that meant betterment 
of social and personal conditions. Of sympathy, or 
what Mr. Bain calls the tender emotions, there could 
have been only a beginning, if even that. Life was 
exacting. 

Out of this state, doubtless by imperceptible grada- 
tions, there grew the j)astoral state. It was still an 
out-door life, as the earlier stages had been. But it 
was more reflective and more purposeful, and, in 
many ways, a " chosen life," not one forced upon man. 
Out with his flocks and his herds, the nomad had some 
leisure and became a naturalist. His living, however, 
was often quite precarious, and his food as uncertain as 
was the hunter's. But the life was one of health and 
vigor ; and observation and keen vision, and courage in 
defense, went along with much monotony, and leisure 
for reflection and revery. 

The really great fact, however, in this period is 
that of the domestication of animals. The entire 
list at present comprises about twenty distinct ani- 
mals, not one of which is an addition to the orig- 
inal number, unless the ostrich be counted. There 
are the domestic cattle, the Eastern buffalo, llama, 
goat, sheep, camel, deer, dog, rabbit, elephant, swine, 
cat, hen, turkey, goose, and pigeon, with perhaps some 
modifications of these. And these date back to a time 
beyond which history gives no information. In a prim- 
itive social state and undeveloped in many of his func- 
tions, man was yet able to tame and domesticate all of 



Ethical Relations 353 

these, and make them, in many places, parts of his house- 
hold. The training of the herbivorous animals must have 
been a long and tedious process. Food and water and 
protection must be provided ; defence against brute ene- 
mies, and against hunting bands and disease. They 
must, many of them at least, have been kept long in 
captivity before they were fitted to the new conditions ; 
their peculiar habits and wants and uses must be un- 
derstood. 

Time and much patience, and mother-wit, and re- 
flection on brute ways and their tempers were of 
incalculable service to the man. Self-mastery came 
through animal mastery. Man himself was tamed. To 
a remarkable degree the brute in him was exorcised . 
through a penetrating comradeship with the brute out 
of him. Aside from serving as pets, the animals were 
found to have a variety of uses — to assist in the chase, 
perhaps, at first; for burden and draft; for food (milk, 
eggs), clothing (fleece), skins, flesh, weapons, etc. In 
the preparation of these articles considerable ingenuity 
was developed ; cooking became more of an art. Breeds 
were improved and herds grown for exchange; smiths 
and spinners and weavers were common. Barter added 
greatly to the variety of foods and utensils and clothing 
one might have, and exerted a stimulating influence. 

Life was taking on some settled ways, and personal 
property rights came to be recognized — property in 
tents and herds and utensils and food and clothing. 
There was a beginning of the notion of real property 
even, when a herdsman or a tribe laid claim to an ex- 



354 Science of Education 

elusive pasturage, as is shown when Abraham and Lot 
contended for their privileges.* ISTotioiis of property 
and of exchange implied a knowledge and use of at 
least simple legal provisions for their safety and for 
the protection of life. Life was becoming complicated, 
and faculty adjusted to its uses. With a milk and meat 
subsistence assured, man's habitat was greatly enlarged, 
the struggle for existence was less severe, and the con- 
ditions of life were easing. 

From the highest form of the life of the hunter 
and warrior, through the third stage and into the 
settled life of agriculture, was probably the longest 
and most important step taken in the natural his- 
tory of the race. There were still famines at times, 
but the advance was considerable. It is said f that 
the early American aborigines had no domesticated 
animals, and missing the semi-stable conditions of 
pastoral growth, have never found it easy to enter 
upon the settled life of the tillers of the soil. In gen- 
eral, the nomadic life had few wants, and so few incen- 
tives to progress. They toiled for necessities and not 
for comforts. 

With the introduction of agriculture the race enters 
upon a distinctly civilized career. It assumes the form 
of a settled life, and accepts the tome, or develops it 

* " The land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell to- 
gether : for their substance was great. . . . And there was a strife 
between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's 
cattle. . . . Then Lot chose hira all the plain of Jordan ; . . . and 
Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan." Genesis xiii, 6-12. 

f Humboldt. " Cosmos," ii, 295. 



Ethical Relations 355 

as the true family type. Very simple at first, the cul- 
tivation of plants, and incidentally the soil, began when 
man was still a hnnter and fisher. But the inconven- 
iences of the herdman's nomadic life hastened his 
" location." The protection of rights in property, real 
and personal, as well as life, became important. A 
home was now to be defended, patriotism developed, 
and thrift and providence and self-dependence. Slowly 
the people grew away from war and toward the arts 
of peace. Roving was not only impossible, but un- 
profitable. (The nomadic instincts still remain, how- 
ever, even to the present day, as witness the ready va- 
grancy in times of discovery — migi'ations or the move- 
ments to the frontiers.) Along with soil cultivation, 
shepherding continued. But there was contentment 
with the increasing comforts of a fixed habitat, and a 
love of the ease, along with the incident wars; and it 
was with the settled life of farming, not with herding 
and nomadism, that the great sei^vitudes of the world 
have been developed. Slavery is, primarily, an inci- 
dent of the agricultural life. 

Planting, sowing and harvest, and the storing of 
the yield till the next season introduced man to 
a new problem. From seed to seed was a long time. 
The sower must learn patience, as he never needed 
to learn it before. The reactions of the mind are 
now chiefly indirect. He must have utensils, and 
implements, and bins, and tools, and vehicles that 
are of no value in themselves, but in an interme- 
diate service. For the results of much of his doing 



356 Science of Education 

he must look to a distant good. The provisions for 
shelter, and wannth, and food, and covering were at 
first very simple. Thought and want made these, and 
thought and want made them better. The weaver came 
early, even in the preceding state; carpentry followed. 
The mechanical interests have never mixed well with 
the agricultural. Throughout the period inventiveness 
has been encouraged. But it was inventiveness of a 
simple sort. Rural life is somewhat narrow, and pro- 
vincially disposed. It develops a sturdy, reliable peo- 
ple, but with few interests, often dull and uninterest- 
ing, and proverbially averse to change. Nevertheless, as 
a class they are the mainstay of a nation. With the de- 
veloping of the manufacturing instinct, and the organ- 
ization of industrial society about creative, not merely 
productive activities, the interests of the country took 
on new meaning. This "^vill be considered as the next 
stage or type form of activity. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 

From the beginning of his human career every sort 
of industiy has made more or less draft upon man's 
resourcefulness, his inventiveness, his manufacturing 
sense. But as a distinguishing feature of his activity 
this faculty was comparatively late in developing. It 
represents the first great step in the movement of de- 
cisive interests away from nature toward artificiality; 
making things, or making them over; transfonning 
natural objects or materials before using them. It was 
very simple at first, but potentially it stands not alone 
for invention and skill, but for art and imagination, 
for multitudes of new experiences and increased com- 
forts, and more elaborate clothing, and housing, and 
furniture, and tools, and weapons. 

Because of the necessity for much cooperation there 
arises division of labor, having very definite aims, but 
involving little personal independence. The labor is 
more individual than in agriculture, but issues in an ex- 
acting social dependence, as if one were part only of an 
organism — not an integer himself. For centuries, how- 
ever, it was mainly domestic and personal ; the educative 
value was great. Each one in almost every family was a 

357 



358 Science of Education 

maker. The doing was reflective, and invited to in- 
definite variation. Ingenuity was stimulated, and the 
fine art sense also, as in no former period. More and 
more accurate tools could be manufactured with which 
more and better products were turued out, along with 
ideals of mechanical efficiency and skill, and new ma- 
chines, and new tools, and new combinations of materi- 
als, in a seemingly endless round of improvement. So- 
ciety was enriched and individual faculty inspirited. 
For the time, the mind was at its best in conceiving 
and planning and executing some new thing. Inven- 
tion and skill were on the " stretch." 

After many generations, the long period of wandering, 
wilderness-training of the mechanic, came the marvellous 
eighteenth century industrial revolution — the spinning- 
jenny, and frames and power looms, and the introduction 
of steam. This occasioned the change from the domestic 
to the factory system. It reduced the importance of the 
individual ; he became simply one of a class. Society 
was enriched at much expense to the man. Each was 
fitted now to a narrow skill. The man was easily lost in 
the workman. But the machine called for nice sense- 
adjustments, and increased the product of his labor, 
and cheapened goods of many sorts, and the families 
began to live better, and leisure was increased, and in- 
tellectual interests diversified. The factory system has 
a profound pedagogical significance. 

But another effect of highly developed manufactur- 
ing interests was the impetus given to the cities. The 
work called for many operatives centrally located. 



Industrial Relations 359 

First there were the numerous farming towns ; then the 
great centres. Conventionalities multiplied. Life, as 
compared with that in the country regions, was formal 
and impersonal. Social impulses were intensified. In 
the country the social elements are less closely knit to- 
gether, less organized; the city has manifold interests, 
stimulating ideas, and speculative business habits. 
Moral standards are likely to be held with laxity. It 
has been said that " the country produces the popula- 
tion, the energy and original ideas — the raw material 
of the social life, tlie food and raw material of manu- 
facture ; by the mind of the city these are wrought into 
forms of service and beauty." Quietude, meditation, 
clear insight, and the great faiths belong to the land. 
The reactions of manufacture upon the surburban and 
frontier life is stimulating and generally wholesome; 
not less so upon the developing commerce. 

At the present day, and among Western nations, of 
the three great occupations — agriculture, manufac- 
tures and commerce — the last occupies a prominent 
place in public notice. But statistics taken within the 
last ten years show that in the United States for the 
entire population agriculture is the first choice, and 
commerce and transportation the last. Agriculture 
stands for stability and conservatism; commerce for 
expansion. Commerce means cooperation, and elabo- 
rate systems of conventionality, and cosmopolitan in- 
terests. It develops shrewdness of a higher kind, for 
the manipulating and exploiting of values and products. 
The activity is a sort of nomadism of intellect, of travel 



360 Science of Education 

and economic crusade. It involves and produces great 
physical and mental plasticity. Tlirongh its generous 
distributions every section is a modem Rome to which 
possibilities converge. What others have, each may 
have. It Romanizes life ; comforts are eclectic ; mind 
is stimulated ; enterprise prevails ; great undertakings 
are the rule. As the city is the product of manufac- 
ture, it is the tool of commerce. The outlying regions 
are urbanized. Interurban transportation, the tele- 
graph, the telephone, good roads, free mail delivery 
distribute intelligence and comfort and efficiency. Each 
is made potential sharer in all. 

So much for the educational significance of typical 
industries, and the steps by which man has come to 
material efficiency. In the aggregate of his achieve- 
ments he has achieved himself. The means he used 
to maintain life have developed a higher life. 

" We rise bj' the things put under our feet, 

By what we have mastered of good and gain; 
By the pride deposed, and the passion slain, 
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet." 

Pedagogically, the important fact in all this discus.- 
sion is that of growth of this ethical sense, its charac- 
teristic stages, and the means of formal culture. The 
growth and the training, both in the individual and the 
race, follow somewhat uniform lines and established 
principles. Here, as in the intellectual life, the stages 
or order of development must fix the distribution of 
culture. 

Primarily, right to the child is what he wants to do. 



Industrial Relations 361 

The little one, barely able to sit alone, kicks from some 
discomfort, and screams furiously till bis demands are 
satisfied. His want is tlie only standard. If wanted 
badly enough and strenuously claimed, bo probably gets 
its satisfaction, and is not only satisfied but justified. 
The want may be legitimate, and the satisfaction be de- 
served, but that his need was not foreseen, and was sat- 
isfied after an expressed, maybe loudly expressed claim, 
confirms in him the infantile notion that justice is to 
be had that way — that right is the thing he wants to 
do or to have ; his will or wish makes it so. Or, refused, 
capriciously and indifferently and finally listened to, 
he is again justified. The standard of behavior is his 
own feeling of want. 

This, I conceive^ is as it should be. Acts are 
not moral acts, unless self-initiated, and however far 
they may depart from this standard in the years 
of moral growth, they must return to the self for 
both motive and choice. In time he will substitute 
" enlightened wants " for these animal claims, and find 
reason, where now appears only perversity in his sur- 
roundings ; but it is still a purpose, or a Avill, or a want 
that is his. But he is weak and, in general, well-dis- 
posed in the presence of an experience which he has 
found able to do so much more for him than he is even 
able to think for himself, and, reasonably refused, or 
convinced, or appeased, he readily capitulates. The re- 
fusal has been preceded by so many generous, loving 
services, and other refusals have been proved so wise, 
that he yields with readiness and content. 



362 Science of Education 

Right then comes to be what parental or other au- 
thority prescribes. The child approaches his first crit- 
ical period. The influence of the mother is great. It 
is no easy matter to exercise authority, and in such way 
that the child's will will not only not be submerged, 
but be strengthened in the power of individual choice. 
Nevertheless it is the period of authority. Others must 
determine for him. The rules of the household, the reg- 
ulations of the school, the teachings of the church, the 
requirements of civil authority are generally wholesome 
and should be obeyed. It was one of the ethical maxims 
of Rosenkranz * to " accustom the pupil to uncondi- 
tional obedience to the idea of duty, so that he shall 
perform it for no other reason than that it is duty." 
He is to be accustomed to it, but not corralled as by 
force. The treatment must be no invertebrate stand 
of concession and severity, neither must it lose sight of 
the fact that, very early, the child must decide many 
matters for himself. Any reasonable treatment will be 
equal to convincing most children that the judgment 
of parents, and teachers, and pastors, and civil author- 
ities, older persons generally, even older brothers and 
sisters, is likely to be safer than their own. Right then 
comes to be that which is prescribed or allowed, or even 
Avhat is not expressly prohibited in his privilege. 

This last, of course, easily leads to technical evasions 

and quibblings, and a thoroughly artificial and non-moral 

standard of behavior. Some people, many perhaps, 

concerning much of their conduct remain for life in 

* " Philosophy of Education," p. 150. 



Industrial Relations 363 

the class with those who conceive that only to be right 
which they wish to do; and others never outgrow the 
second stage, but either accept weakly the dictum of 
those in authority or hold themselves at liberty to ignore 
such commands as may be evaded, holding that " a 
theft undiscovered is no theft " ; that dishonest tax 
returns are legitimate if let pass ; that a drafted patri- 
otism is honorable; that unrebuked discourtesy is no 
wrong. Besides, it is not needed that one live long to 
discover that some people, so-called good people, re- 
spected and honored, regulate their conduct by very un- 
conventional and repudiated standards. If they can 
do so, and retain self-respect, and receive honored 
mention, and be efficient citizens, why may not others ? 
Children of one family find themselves under prohi- 
bitions that do not apply to their young companions. 
The restraints are brought to trial. Home rules are 
questioned. The fairness of parents and teachers has 
come to doubt in the mind of the child. Shall he obey 
commands or follow customs ? 

Almost inevitably right for the youth comes now to 
be what people about him do ; not what formulated rules 
prescribe, but what conduct they show. It is the be- 
ginning of respect for public opinion. It is one of the 
heart-breaking discoveries of parents when they find 
that a child is growing away from them. He comes to 
know things they do not know; to have interests which 
they have not inspired ; to entertain notions of behavior 
at variance with theirs ; to plan his entertainment with- 
out consulting them ; to weigh their counsel. But it is 



S64 Science of Education 

in the order of things. The growth of the moral sense 
in him rests upon the exercise of his moral sense. More 
and more his acts must be purposed from within, not 
from without. 

In the meantime he comes to be increasingly in- 
fluenced by his companions in the home, in the school, 
and in the neighborhood, by friends of the family 
and chance acquaintances. He becomes sensitive to 
public opinion, about matters of speech, and dress, 
and manners, and his personal appearance. Under 
certain influences he becomes tidy, as never under 
the influence of his mother; stimulated by some 
forceful character, he grows ambitious of achievement, 
studious and full of plans ; he adopts the ways and 
manners of a gentleman. Under other influences he 
swaggers or affects to dissipate, or befouls his language, 
or revels in exciting literature, or wastes his leisure. 
He is at the age when it is easy to accept the saying 
that " one is better witli others than when he is alone, 
and worse with others than when alone." He is ob- 
servant of ways of doing rather than of any code or pre- 
scriptive reasons ; of customs, not ideals ; or sensitive to 
ideals as they are revealed in custom. That is, he be- 
gins to select from current behavior what he walls to 
do. He assumes the position of arbiter. It is apparent 
to adults that it is really society that decides for him. 
He thinks that he determines what part of society shall 
affect his decision. She is a wise mother or teacher 
whose exercise of authority has been such that instinc- 
tively he determines wisely. 



Industrial Relations 365 

The transition from the first stage to the second was a 
gain — a real moral gain — because he passed to the guid- 
ance of a larger exjDerience, that of his parents. The 
change from the " must " of the second period to the 
selected practice of the third was a long step, because it 
marks the beginning of self-judgment in conduct as 
against a blind following of a borrowed judgment. In 
doing as he finds others do, not as is prescribed, he makes 
many blunders. Fine manners sometimes rest with the 
incompetent or the vicious. The companionship of those 
Avhose ideals he adopts does not always bring him either 
respect or recognition. He sees no personal advantage in 
such behavior. He begins to pass judgment upon his 
companions, as once he did, and perhaps continues to 
do, upon those in authority — his father and mother and 
teacher. Shrewdly, he concludes that he must keep his 
own counsel, and do what pays, i.e., what pays accord- 
ing to his standard of worth. 

As a result of experience, and chastened by it, he 
takes right now to be what is useful. The transition 
again is one of improvement. Personal choice begins 
in a direct way. Right ideals will assist much in know- 
ing what is really useful, as will early good example, 
and habitually gentle behavior, and a character that 
has been forming in the midst of genial, straightfor- 
ward and sensible, but tender companionships. What 
he regards as useful will be largely determined by what 
people about him have regarded as useful, and mth 
what face it has been presented. In general, he will 
accept probably as serviceable to him what successful 



366 Science of Education 

people have done — people whom he regards as success- 
ful. This is the age of hero-worship and the birth of 
ambitions, and an assertive self-confidence, sometimes 
rudeness, and, occasionally, over-sensitiveness ; of real de- 
votion to purposes, and hopefulness. ISTot unfrequently 
it leads to or is accompanied by secretiveness, deception, 
and, if brought to the stand, falsehood. He becomes 
concerned to justify himself and his gallery of his- 
torical or contemporary personal characters kept for 
admiration or example. He has a da^vning respect for 
ideals ; and tries to find explanation for success and 
efficiency, and manly behavior, and heroisms ; and be- 
gins to see in certain social conventions something more 
than mere forms. He is less insular, and finds reason 
for respecting high achievement of men and w^omen, 
in other times and places, and under very different 
codes; and to have faith, touching conduct, that there 
is somewhat that abides. 

Finally, in this natural history of the moral sense 
there arises the conviction that, in the experience of 
the race, that which has been found to have enduring 
significance in human conduct has a validity beyond 
creeds and codes, and the rules of institutions, and the 
dogmatisms of teachers, or any external authority. In 
the schools, the conviction may be strengthened — should 
be — and the ideals given effective form through chosen 
biographies ; through the great fictions ; through the 
world's eminent moral leaders ; through the race's 
Bibles, the high-water marks of its achievement in liv- 
ing, and ethical insights, and devotion tO' ideals, and 



Industrial Relations 367 

epocL-making faiths ; and tlirougii liistory, with its 
wonderful overcomings, its ameliorations and its al- 
truism. 

" Ideal literature, the better class of fiction and 
poetry, which not only reaches the intellect, but 
touches the feelings and brings the motive powers in 
harmony with ideal characters, deeds and aspirations, 
may have the highest value in forming the ethical life 
of the pupil. Here is presented the very essence of the 
best ideas and feelings of humanity — thoughts that 
bum, emotions of divine quality, desires that go be- 
yond our best realizations, acts that are heroic — all 
painted in vivid colors. By reading we enter into the 
life of greater souls, we share their aspirations, we 
make their treasure our own. A large share of the 
moralization of the world is done by this process of ap- 
plying poetry to life." * There comes thus a sense of 
the permanently good ; a sense of an " ought " that is 
personal and not to be evaded ; a conviction that that 
way lie contentment, self-respect, worthiness. 

It must be understood that the foregoing presenta- 
tion of the development of the moral sense, as worked 
out in one's social environment, does not pretend to be a 
philosophy of morals, but a brief statement of the natural 
history of the faculty as it comes to the surface in 
childhood and youth. The conditions and laws of such 
growth are similar to those of intellectual gi'owth. There 
is always present the fact of personal responsibility. 
The act to have any distinctive flavor must be one's own. 
* Baker. " Education aud Life," p. 97. 



368 Science of Education 

It cannot be imposed from without. The notion, too, 
of the quality of Tightness or wrongness in conduct has 
an early beginning, and can only grow — it cannot be 
manufactured. Moreover, character, just as scholarship, 
is the product of an individual effort. Each must work 
out his own salvation. 

As concerns the cultivation of the moral sense by the 
school or the home, beyond what has already been said, 
what may be done with advantage will vary with the 
disposition and varying points of view of the child. In 
general, it may be said, the moral responsibility must 
be estimated in terms of his experience, not that of 
his teachers or elders. A man or a boy shall be judged, 
in moral matters also, according to that he hath of in- 
sight, and maturity and ideals, not according to that 
he hath not. As the sense of obligation is at first nega- 
tive, however, there is required an intelligent exercise 
of authoritj'. But it should be the authority of wisdom, 
wise sympathy and understanding, not the authority of 
officialism. It should guide without dominating; in- 
struct and inspire, not compel. 

As conduct greatly depends upon habit, right con- 
duct should be early mechanized in all minor and 
conventional forms. These habits of behavior con- 
stitute the carrying machinery for the more distinctly 
moral actions of later years. A scrupulous observ- 
ance of the forms of manliness and honesty and so- 
cial courtesy makes easier, stimulates to, the prac- 
tice of manliness, honesty and gentle courtesy. At 
certain stages also, in the growth of the ethical sense, 



Industrial Relations 369 

utilitarian and prudential appeals most readily reach 
the child. This is the stage of " honesty is the best 
policy," and should be so recognized. It is not un- 
worthy because it is not the highest appeal. Just as 
punishment for mlful wrong-doing is legitimate, so is 
reward for purposeful right-doing. But the reward 
must be accorded for a conquest over self, not because 
a pupil has surpassed some other in the observance of 
regulations. Appeals to the desire of approbation, to 
love of decorations or membership in leagues or socie- 
ties to which all may attain ; or appreciation of coveted 
privileges or service where the evils of rivalry are 
avoided, or of objects of material value won by thought- 
ful conduct or fidelity to child responsibilities, are all 
valid marks of recognition of the utility stage in the 
development of this sense. The object of all discipline 
and punishments and rewards is not to secure or main- 
tain " good order " or obedience to rules, but looks 
to the cultivation of the right habits of mind, and a 
disposition to choose safely. Mere disorder may be 
often overlooked, if the child be really gaining in self- 
control and considerateness. It should be noted also 
that, in the nonnal gro^vth of this ethical character, 
there is a gradual substitution of distant for present 
or immediate pleasures and interests as motives to 
right conduct. The hope or reasonable assurance of 
" promotion " at the end of a school period is a real 
and healthy motive to a child at certain stages of his 
advancement, an assurance that his labors shall not go 
for nothing, and that no technical and accidental short- 



370 Science of Education 

comings snail be allowed to cheat him of his deserts. 
He is an utilitarian, and has so fine a sense of fairness 
that any really fair dealing with him easily tides him 
over a doubtful i^eriod. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

ANTHROPOLOGY 

In anthropology, also, are to be found yet other con- 
ditions determinative of educational doctrine. It has 
been defined as the science of man in his aggregate of 
functions, and giving one product, of which it presents 
the natural history. " It investigates man as this com- 
plex whole, as he is found in temperament, race, sex 
and age; and as he is affected by climate and employ- 
ment, or a more or less perfect civilization. It in- 
quires how he is formed and changed in body and soul 
by inherited peculiarities and accidental circumstances. 
It discusses the influence of the soul upon the body 
and the body upon the soul, in the normal and abnormal 
states and functions of each. But it notices and records 
the various phenomena of each, only so far as they 
are open to general observation, and require no scien- 
tific anaylsis or explanation." * In his " Man's Place 
in Nature," delivered as lectures, and published in 
1863, Huxley includes six chapters touching the " Nat- 
ural History of the Man-like Apes," the " Relations of 
Man to the Lower Animals," and certain ethnological 
questions. " The object of anthropology," says Quatre- 
• Porter. " The Human Intellect," p. 7. 
371 



372 Science of Education 

fages, " is the study of man as a species." ITotwith- 
standiiig, he has his special and exclusively human phe- 
nomena, and is studied as such in human physiology 
and pathology and philosophy and religion ; he is also 
an organized being, and is subject to the same laws and 
environing conditions as bear upon other living beings, 
conditions of climate, topography, food-supply, other 
animal groups, sex, etc. Mr. Tyler speaks of the sub- 
ject as " the science, of man and civilization," which 
connects into a more manageable whole many of the 
scattered subjects of an ordinary education; and in his 
suggestive volume,* which he calls " an introduction 
to anthropolog_v, rather than a smnmary of all it 
teaches," he includes, besides the customary considera- 
tion of man in relation to other animals, ancient and 
modern man, and the races of mankind, a dozen very 
valuable chapters on the natural history of language, 
writing, the arts of life (very full and interesting), 
the arts of plea sure', science, the spirit world, mythol- 
ogy, and social developments. What man is to-day in 
any one of these respects is but the apex of centuries of 
struggle, of experimenting, sometimes being experi- 
mented upon ; here failing, there succeeding ; occasion- 
ally failing to the verge of extinction, again succeeding 
even to mastery; shifting results and conserving the 
few that are found worthy. The way up has been tor- 
tuous, but up. Each generation, each individual, in- 
deed, is the sum of a lineal series reaching far back into 
the centuries, and any dealing with either that deals 
*E. B. Tyler. "Anthropology." 



Anthropology 373 

justly must therefore take that past into account. 
J. T. Trowbridge, in the poem * of which the follow- 
ing is an extract, represents the speaker as reading a 
family history, and reflecting upon the source of his 
character impulses. It puts the case fairly and in 
striking phrase. 



Open lies the book before me ; 

In a realm obscure as dreams, 
I can trace the pale blue mazes 

Of innumerable streams, 
That from regions lost in distance. 

Vales of shadow far apart, 
Meet to blend their mystic forces 

In the torrents of my heart. 

Pensively I turn the pages, 

Pausing, curious and aghast ; 
What commingled unknown currents, 

Mighty passions of the past. 
In this narrow, pulsing moment. 

Through my fragile being pour. 
From the mystery behind me 

To the mystery before ! 

I put by the book: in vision 

Rise the gray ancestral ghosts. 
Reaching back into the ages, 

Vague, interminable hosts. 
From the home of modern culture. 

To the cave uncouth and dim, 
Where — what's he that gropes? 

A savage, naked, gibbering, grim! 

* J. T.Trowbridge. "Ancestors." 



874 Science of Education 



I was moulded in that far-off 

Time of ignorance and wrong, 
When the world was to the crafty. 

To the ravenous and strong ; 
Tempered in the fires of struggle, 

Of aggression and resistance, 
In the prowler and the slayer 

I have had a pre-existence. 

Wild forefathers, I salute you ! 

Though your times were fierce and rude, 
From their rugged husks of evil 

Comes the kernel of our good ; 
Sweet the righteousness that follows, 

Great the forces that foreran ; 
'Tis the marvel still of marvels, 

That there's such a thing as man I 

Now I see I have exacted 

Too much justice of my race. 
Of my own heart too much wisdom, 

Of my brothers too much grace ; 
Craft and greed our primal dower. 

Wrath and hate our heritage. 
Scarcely gleams as yet the crescent 

Of the full-orbed golden age. 

Man's great passions are coeval 

With the vital bi'eath he draws, 
Older than all codes of custom, 

All religions, and all laws; 
Before prudence was, or justice, 

They were proved and justified; 
We may shame them and deny them, 

Their dominion will abide. 

Wrong and insult find me weaponed 
For a more heroic strife; 



Anthropology 375 

In the sheath of luercy quivers 

The barbarian's ready knife. 
But I blame no more the givers 

For the rudeness of the dower ; 
'Twas tlie roughness of the tliistle 

That insured the future flower. 

Somehow hidden in the slayer 

Was the singer yet to be; 
In the fiercest of my fathers 

Lived the prophecy of me ; 
But the turbid rivers flowing 

To my heart, were filtered through 
Tranquil veins of honest toilers, 

To a more cerulean hue. 

my fathers, in whose bosoms 
Slowly dawned the later light. 

In whom grew the thirst for knowledge. 
In whom burned the love of right : 

All my heart goes out to know you. 
With a yearning near to pain, 

1 once more take up the volume; 
But I turn the leaves in vain. 

Not a voice of all your voices 

Comes to me from out the vast ; 
Not a thought of all your thinking 

Into living form has passed ; 
As I peer into the darkness, 

Not a being of my name 
Stands revealed against the shadows 

In the beacon glare of flame. 

Yet your presence, O my parents, 

In my inmost soul I find, 
Your persistent spectres haunting 

The dim chambers of my mind ; 



*i76 Science of Education 



Old convulsions of the planet 

In the new earth leave their trace, 

And a child's heart is an index 
To the story of his race. 

Each with his unuttered secret, 

Down the common road you went, 
Winged with hope and exultation, 

Bowed with toil and discontent: 
Fear and triumph and bereavement, 

Birth and death and love and strife, 
Wove the evanescent vesture 

Of your many-colored life. 

Your long-silent generations 

First in me have found a tongue, 
And I bear the mystic burden 

Of a thousand lives unsung : 
Hence this love for all that's human, 

The strange sympathies I feel, 
Subtle memories and emotions 

Which I stammer to reveal. 

Here I joy and sing and suffer, 

In this moment fleeting fast, 
Then become myself a phantom 

Of the far- receding past. 
When our modern shall be ancient. 

And the narrow times expand, 
Down through ever-broadening eras, 

To a future vast and grand. 

Yours the full-blown flower of freedom, 
Which in struggle we have sown ; 

Yours the spiritual science 
That shall overarch our own : 

You in turn will look with wonder, 
From a more enlightened time. 



Anthropology ^11 

Upon us, your rude forefathers 
In an age of war and crime. 

Half our virtues will seem vices, 

By your broader, higher right, 
And the brightness of the present 

Will be shadow in that light : 
For behold, our boasted culture 

Is a morning cloud unfurled 
In the dawning of the ages. 

And the twilight of the world. 

Looking at the science of antliropology with refer- 
ence to pedagogical meaning, it may be regarded as the 
record of the race's dependence upon and gradual eman- 
cipation from nature. From primitive times to the 
present, man's attitude toward nature has changed in- 
calculably, but in most highly cultivated persons there 
are vestiges of primitive habits and instincts, supersti- 
tions and fears, longings, forebodings, unintelligible un- 
certainties and presumptions. Many of these hint of a 
day when man was mastered by nature, inexorable, and, 
humanly speaking, cruel. The following extract from 
Owen Meredith's " Lucile " is a brief but comprehen- 
sive epitome of the human conflict in the civilizing 
process. He says : 

Man is born on a battle field. Round him to rend 

Or resist, the dread powers he displaces attend. 

By the cradle which nature, amidst the stern shocks 

That have shattered creation, and shapened its rocks. 

He leaps with a wail into being, and lo ! 

His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe. 

Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o'er his head: 

'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes ; her solitudes spread 



378 Science of Education 

To daunt him ; her forces dispute his command : 
Her snows fall to freeze him ; her rocks rise to crush : 
And lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush 
On their startled invader, ... 
. . . and the first thing he worships is terror. 

. . . Anon, 
Still impelled by necessity hungrily on, 
He conquers the realms of his own self-reliance, 
And the last cry of fear wakes the first of defiance. 

And man conquering terror is worshipped by man. 
A camp has this world been since first it began ! 
From his tent sweeps the roving Arabian ; at peace, 
A mere wandering shepherd that follows the fleece ; 
But warring his way through a world's destinies, 
Lo, from Delhi, from Bagdad, from Cordova rise 
Domes of empiry, dowered with science and art. 
Schools, libraries, forums, the palace, the mart. 

New realms to man's soul have been conquered. But those 

Forthwith they see peopled for man by new foes ! 

The stars keep their secrets, the earth hides her own, 

And bold must the man be that braves the unknown I 

Not a truth has to art or to science been given. 

But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven ! 

And many have striven and many have failed, 

And many died slain by the truth they assailed. 

But when man hath tamed Nature, asserted his place 

And dominion, behold ! he is brought face to face 

With a new foe — himself I 

The principal physical influences hearing upon man 
are climate, seasons, topography, soil, and animal and 
plant environment. These are o£ far less hostile char- 
acter to-day tlian in early experiences of the race. Prim- 
itive man, for instance, had in the case of any particu- 



Anthropology 379 

lar group a very narrow habitat. Easy acclimatization 
belongs to the civilized races. Savages are scarcely less 
susceptible than animals to the physical hindrances of 
climate, variations of altitude, bodies of water and tree- 
less plains. Herodotus asserts that there was a time 
when the great Egyptians had lived upon roots and 
fruits, making a kind of bread from the middle part 
of the lotus, dried and baked ; and had risen from this 
state to one of civilization. And no high civilization 
has ever been able to maintain itself below the temper- 
ate zone or beyond tlie fiftieth degree of latitude, ex- 
cept where some special influence modified the climate. 
Even yet, twenty-five degrees in width (north and 
south) across the two Americas, Eurasia and Australia, 
comprise the areas really serviceable to effective living. 
If the climate be such as to make the struggle too se- 
vere, or if it be such as to call for no struggle, there is 
a corresponding loss of vitality. 

Mankind inhabits all parts of the earth's land surface, 
but a small portion only has been conquered to the extent 
that it is fit for the erection of progressive institutions. 
Until the most recent periods, indeed, the boundaries be- 
tween nations were natural barriers. As instances of 
this may be mentioned the channel separating England 
from the mainland, the mountains of Asia and South 
America, the bold topography about little Switzerland, 
and the early conception of the sea-coast colonies in the 
United States concerning the Alleghenies as an insepara- 
ble barrier against any States-settlement of the region 
west of them. On the other hand, a rugged topography 



380 Science of Education 

as the liome of a people has always favored a sturdy in- 
dependence ; an indented coast line, commerce and a 
sea-faring life ; rocky coasts, fishing ; and an invigorat- 
ing climate, civic energy and progressive institutions. 
For centuries after civilization began the great oceans 
were an insurmountable obstacle to distant coloniza- 
tion or to extended commerce. Wind and storm added 
to the difficulty. The stubbornness of natural condi- 
tions in manifold Avays have made the meagre and pre- 
carious food-supply a constant menace. 

Whether it be the infertility of the soil, the rigors of 
the climate, the contracted territory and a dense popula- 
tion, or the thriftless, improvident character of the peo- 
ple, millions in every century have had neither leisure 
nor energy for any high accomplishments in civilization. 
To all such, nature and nature's demands have made life 
a hard, unlovely and hopeless or hope-deferred thing. It 
destroys spontaneity, dulls ambition and belittles effort, 
whether among Fuegians or the habitants of city slums, 
of whatever race or antecedent. From whatever cause, 
badly nourished, insufficiently clothed children are poor 
material for any formal instruction. It is fundamental 
that they and their people be taught how to live while 
acquiring the means of living. Learning of whatever 
sort, that leaves the mind spiritless and content on low 
levels, is of doubtful service. Constantly to aspire to 
something better, to greater efficiency, to more abun- 
dant life is the one product of education to be coveted. 
The school must strive to do for all what this all-per- 
vading friction with a not unfriendly but unyielding 



Anthropology 381 

nature has done for many — arouse them tO' a confident 
self-help. 

Throughout the preceding paragraph there has heen 
implied the thought that the pursuit of this strife with 
nature was not to be unequal. The divine command to 
" be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," * 
included the further responsibility to " subdue it." The 
steps in material civilization are an expression of man's 
progress in this subjugation. The procession has not 
always been one of progress even to man. Sometimes he 
has made his way harder. That he has progressed 
means that he has also often, more often, eased the 
conditions. Many things had to be discovered, and 
others invented, and still others better understood, be- 
fore some of the simplest raw materials could be brought 
into any effective service. Much more, the so-called 
forces of nature must be brought into working control. 

The acquiring of mere comforts needed centuries of 
struggle. 

Almost seven centuries ago, but hundreds of genera- 
tions after fire was known, Roger Bacon, the great Eng- 
lish philosopher and Middle Age monk, said, two things 
the race most needed for its further progress : some 
means of heating, that the year might be leng-thened for 
man's use, and an efficient means of lighting, that more 
hours of the day might be employed. But for five hun- 
dred years after this even there was not so much as one 
public lamp in the streets of London or Paris, though 
two centuries earlier in Cordova, Spain, " a man might 
walk through the streets in a straight line ten miles by 
* Genesis i, 28. 



382 Science of Education 

the light of public lamps." * So slowly even then did 
the conveniences of life diffuse themselves among the 
people. 

Man has learned, however, to cross natural bar- 
riers of land and water ; he has converted to his use 
winds, and rivers, and heat, and even tides. Dikes 
have been raised to prevent floods and to reclaim ripa- 
rian lands ; streams have been turned from their courses 
in mill-races, canals, and for vast systems of irrigation ; 
swamps have been reclaimed and converted into pro- 
ductive, arable land ; mountains have been pierced with 
shafts and tunnels for wealth of minerals ; sea ap- 
proaches have been turned into harbors; deserts have 
been brought to cultivation, and millions of acres of tim- 
ber land cleared for the plough and for homes. Rivers 
have been bridged, highways built, and bodies of water 
connected by great canals. Both animal and plant 
species in considerable numbers have been modified in 
important respects — in food and habit and habitat and 
disposition; animals in a measure, and plants in a re- 
markable degree, have been redistributed geographically 
and acclimated with success. 

But the really great example of man's reduction of 
nature to his point of view appears in his recognition 
and interpretation and practical use of what have come 
to be kno^vn as the " forces " of nature. In chemistr;^ 
there has come an intimate knowledge of the gases, the 
decomposition of earth substances, elements and com- 
pounds, and relative weights, and numerous great and 
* See Draper. "Intellectual Development of Europe," ii, p. 31. 



Anthropology 383 

incident industries ; in physics, a long list of discoveries 
and inventions, of forces and instruments, for scientific 
study and research, in both peace and war ; in engineer- 
ing, no less startling achievements, from the simplest 
works to the most elaborate foundation and structural 
concretes, bridge-building, railroading, hydraulic and 
engine construction, metallurgy and mining, to the 
modern seemingly incredible feats of industrial en- 
gineering that have revolutionized all forms of manu- 
facture. So great has been its service to human com- 
fort, it has been claimed that " engineering is the art of 
controlling the great powers of nature for the use and 
convenience of man." * 

Similarly in the handling of health and disease, 
preventive medicine has made great and solid ad- 
vance; as have the discoveries of bacteriology, vac- 
cination, anaesthetics, medical surgery, the Roentgen 
ray, and the introduction and employment of hospitals, 
trained nurses, etc. Without specifying at length, per- 
haps the most noticeable and important advance made 
in recent years is in the field of electricity, with its 
electro-chemical work, wire conductors and cables for 
lighting, telegraph and telephone, motors, dynamos, 
storage batteries, power-transmission, electric welding, 
etc. It took centuries after the assumption of a rela- 
tively high civilization to bring the simplest of these 
near enough to man to claim his critical attention even. 
" Primitive men," it has been said, " are bewildered in 
the presence of these natural forces. They lack knowl- 
* See " Progress of the Century," p. 449. 



384 Science of Education 

edge and skill to use them, or even the raw materials 
nearest at hand. The field, the plain, the forest, the 
mountain are rich with treasures, hut they know not 
how to find them." 

Nor is this all. The higher and moral interests 
of man are supreme, and in this overcoming of 
material nature one is led to ask. What has this nat- 
ural and human environment done for the spiritual 
faculties ? Is it true, as Huxley suggests, that " the 
struggle for existence, which has done much admira- 
ble work in cosmic nature, must be equally benefi- 
cent in the ethical sphere " ? * In another paragraph 
the same author says : " Let us understand, once for all, 
that the ethical progress of society depends not on imi- 
tating the cosmic process, still less in running away from 
it, but in combating it. . . . The history of civiliza- 
tion details the steps by which men have succeeded in 
building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Frag- 
ile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a think- 
ing reed ; there lies within him a fund of energy, oper- 
ating intelligently, and so far akin to that which per- 
vades the universe that it is competent to influence and 
modify the cosmic process. In virtue of his intelli- 
gence, the dwarf bends the Titan to his will. In every 
family, in every polity that has been established, the 
cosmic process in man has been restrained and other- 
wise modified by law and custom; in surrounding 
nature it has been similarly infiuenced by the art of 
the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civiliza- 
* Huxley. " Evolution and Ethics," p. 83. 



Anthropology 385 

tion has advanced, so has the extent of this interference 
increased, until the organized and highly developed sci- 
ences and arts of the present day have endowed man 
with a command over the course of non-human nature 
greater than that once attributed to the magician." 
" For his successful progress throughout the savage 
state man has been largely indebted to those qualities 
which he shares with the ape and the tiger; his excep- 
tional physical organization, his cunning, his sociabil- 
ity, his curiosity, and his imitativeness ; his ruthless and 
ferocious destructiveness when his anger is aroused by 
opposition. But in proportion as men have passed from 
anarchy to social organization, and in proportion as 
civilization has grown in worth, these deeply ingrained 
serviceable qualities have become defects." * But he 
asks : " Will not the intelligence which has converted 
the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of 
the flock be able to do something toward curbing the 
instincts of savagery in civilized man ? " 

The problem is pregnant with meaning and suggestion 
for teachers. A system of educational doctrine must be 
inadequate that does not allow for a consideration of 
these basic qualities as conditioning formal guidance. 

Race characteristics also are anthropological facts 
having educational significance. Primarily, tempera- 
mental differences have diverged philosophies, and 
standards of conduct, and pedagogical theory and prac- 
tice. No one who is familiar with the professional lit- 
erature of the modern great nations can fail to recog- 
* Huxley. "Evolution and Ethics," p. 51. 



386 Science of Education 

nize the effects upon education of English conserva- 
tism, or the German militant and monarchic institu- 
tions, or French secularism, or the American optimism, 
in their respective countries. A striking contrast 
appears between the Chinese and the Japanese in 
their temper and their education. The Chinese are the 
English of the Orient, conservative, stable, self-assured ; 
the Japanese are the Oriental French. The Chinese con- 
servatism is of the past; the English of the present. 
With the Gennans it is rather a conservatism of au- 
thority. The Americans are restless, looking to the fu- 
ture, trying for success, because of past success; the 
Japanese, equally restless, seeking success on the ruins 
of past failure. Canada and Japan, in education, rep- 
resent not growth but the eclectic principle. 

" A nation," says Fouillee,* " like an individual, has 
its own instinct and genius, and has a more or less vague 
sense of its mission to humanity. . . . The Jews were 
not the only people who believed, and rightly believed, 
that they were chosen to transform the world ; the Greeks 
considered their mission to be the propagation of the arts 
and sciences; Rome claimed the dominion of the world 
— even when invaded by barbarians she still was queen ; 
the English claim that their destiny is to rule 
the sea, and to found colonies in distant lands. Ameri- 
cans are fond of representing their country as a theatre 
for the trial and development of liberty in every form, 
and in every direction of speculative and practical 
life. . . . We know the Germany of to-day believes 

* Fouillee. " Education from a National Standpoint," pp. 2-6. 



Anthropology 387 

in her scientific and political mission, just as in the 
time of Luther she believed in her religiovis mission. 
As for France, her belief in the universal triumph of 
reason, law and fraternity is a commonplace." 

It is not at all certain that these differences of race and 
nationality are anything deeper than social heredity. 
But, whether received by social or biological inheri- 
tance, they constitute strong factors in the national ed- 
ucation. The race and national spirit cannot wisely be 
ignored. Of Guyau's " Education and Heredity," put- 
ting together the two essential factors in the national 
education — the individual and the nation — Fouillee has 
said that the problem of education is, given the heredi- 
tary merits and faults of a race, how far may they be 
modified by means of education for the benefit of a new 
heredity ? and adds that " it is not merely a matter of 
the instruction of individuals, but of the preservation 
and improvement of the race." 

Inequalities in race development determine the co- 
existence of unlike systems, and often opposing educa- 
tional claims. With a negro population of more than 
7,000,000 in the United States, 250,000 Indian wards, 
and an almost unbroken stream of immigrants, of 
all nations and every possible social class, we have 
need in this country to understand the ethnic and na- 
tional points of view in education. If such heteroge- 
neous people are to be really a nation, their fatherland 
heredities and their age-long social predispositions 
must here be brought into accord with our own national 
spirit. Wo mere information barnacled onto their lives, 



388 Science of Education 

and as such, held at second-hand, can be effective to di- 
vert any ingrained inheritance. It must be something 
more than veneering. It must reach the heart and the 
purposes, and be equal to giving a new trend to the 
life. The unthinking races are teleological, supersti- 
tious, and hold all truth with a bias. To such persons 
each truth has its private meanings, which they sur- 
render with protest. ]^ot always do honor and hon- 
esty and labor, and the claims of home, and free speech, 
and love of country, and civic responsibility, connote 
universal and impersonal verities. 

Fitting for higher levels goes on but slowly. Primitive 
races especially take a limited education well ; often with 
exceptional ease. But they sooner reach the limit of their 
capacity. Individual facts, concrete exercises, memory 
acquisitions, handwork, and an active life attract. Be- 
sides the Indian and the negro, there are millions in the 
United States to whom this applies. The state of race or 
social development which an individual has attained 
must be recognized as a factor in his education. What 
has been accomplished by the Japanese in fifty years 
shows the wonderful possibilities of an education in 
shifting the attitude of a people on civic and ethical and 
cultural questions, if undertaken with vigor and intelli- 
gence. In race development also the love of the orna- 
mental, as Spencer has shown,* precedes or aggressively 
elbows the regard for the useful. The demand even 
to-day among ourselves for a scanty classical or nar- 
rowly aesthetic or cultural discipline, in place of power- 
*" Education," p. 21. 



Anthropology 389 

giving studies and effective training, is part of the same 
tendency. It is primitive habit clinging to the skirts of 
civilization. The negro is emotional, credulous, touch- 
ing certain interests morally irresponsible, lives in the 
present and craves ease and physical comfort, seeks 
sensuous pleasures, must slowly acquire the practice of 
thrift, and is very religious. In his interest such qual- 
ities of character should modify, radically, notions of 
education and many of the existing systems of school- 
ing. This lesson our government has been slow to learn 
in dealing with its wards, its large foreign population 
with alien interests, and its submerged black tenth. 

The force of all this is emphasized in the now 
generally accepted principle, true both biologically and 
psychologically, that in his development the individual 
follows essentially the same order as the race pursued. 
The teachings of modern science concur in this conclu- 
sion. The most complete statement of the doctrine is 
found in Herbert Spencer's chapter on " Intellectual 
Education," * an extract from which follows : " The 
education of the child must accord both in mode and 
arrangement with the education of mankind as consid- 
ered historically; or in other words, the genesis of 
knowledge in the individual must follow the same course 
as the genesis of knowledge in the race. To M. Comte, 
we believe, society owes the enunciation of this doctrine, 
a doctrine which we may accept without committing 
ourselves to his theory of the genesis of knowledge, 
either in its causes or its order. In support of this doc- 
* Spencer. "Education," pp. 21, 122. 



390 Science of Education 

trine twO' reasons may be assigned, either of them suffi- 
cient to establish it. One is deducible from the law 
of hereditary transmission as considered in its wider 
consequences. For if it be true that men exhibit like- 
ness to ancestry, both in aspect and character ; if it be 
true that certain mental manifestations, as insanity, will 
occur in successive members of the same family at the 
same age; if, passing from individual cases in which 
the traits of many dead ancestors mixing with those of 
a few living ones greatly obscure the law, we turn to 
national types, and remark how the contrasts between 
them are persistent from age to age ; if we remember 
that these respective types came from a common stock, 
and that hence the present marked differences between 
them must have arisen from the action of modifying 
circumstances upon successive generations who sever- 
ally transmitted the accumulated effects to their de- 
scendants ; if we find the differences to be now organic, 
so that the French child grows into a Frenchman, even 
when brought up among strangers, and if the general 
fact thus illustrated is true of the whole nature, intel- 
lect inclusive, then it follows that if there be an order 
in which the human race has mastered its various kinds 
of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude 
to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. 
So that even were tbe order intrinsically indifferent, 
it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind 
through the steps traversed by the general mind. But 
the order is not intrinsically indifferent, and hence the 
fundamental reason why education should be a repeti- 



Anthropology 391 

tion of civilization in little. It is alike provable that 
the historical sequence was, in its main outlines, a neces- 
sary one, and that the causes which determined it apply 
to the child as to the race. Kot to specify these causes 
in detail, it will suffice here to point out that as the mind 
of humanity placed in the midst of phenomena and 
striving to comprehend them has, after endless compari- 
sons, speculations, experiments, and theories, reached its 
present knowledge of each subject by a specific route; 
it may rationally be inferred that the relationship be- 
tween mind and phenomena is such as to prevent this 
knowledge from being reached by any other route, and 
that, as each child's mind stands in this same relation- 
ship to phenomena, they can be accessible to it only 
through the same route. Hence in deciding upon the 
right method of education, an inquiry into the method 
of civilization \vill help to guide us." 

Kant, Huxley and others have made similar obser- 
vations. Hence, an emphasis in recent years put upon 
myths and legends, the Homeric and Old Testament 
stories for early child periods ; later the touch Avith the 
world of fact and change and thing, and the achieve- 
ments of his own time. 

Among all the class relations noted on a preceding 
page, the most marked and organic, because an anthro- 
pological fact, is that of sex with its pedagogical and 
other social implications. 

Primarily it is to be observed that this relation is 
at the basis of the family as an institution. The family 
is the primary social group, and '^ educates the child. 



Sd2 Science of Education 

not for itself but for civil society." It becomes, there- 
fore, " the organic starting-point of all education." 
From the earliest days of the race, the household spirit 
has led to much differentiation of domestic duties, and 
so has through centuries evolved a wide difference of 
faculty between the two sexes. It is now pretty evident 
that in certain primitive population centres, as man 
was the soldier and hunter, the race is doubtless in- 
debted to woman for the invention and early develop- 
ment of agriculture and other related arts. Through- 
out the period of history of those nations that have come 
to civilization this difference of domestic duties has 
more or less taken into account the child-bearing func- 
tions of the woman, further diverging her services. This 
difference of duties and the incident privileges has 
been accompanied or followed by a difference of educa- 
tion. 

In general, it may be said that woman has had 
less education than man; that the little received was 
less formal, chiefly incidental, and usually of different 
subject-matter. Along with the general movement also 
have gone different claims by the two sexes, and con- 
sequently unlike privileges. Unlike privileges have, in 
times and places, become unequal j^rivileges. These un- 
equal privileges and unlike responsibilities have effected 
a different mental attitude and dissimilar interests and 
mental powers. It would be strange if it were not so. 
Generations of variant reactions must have had their 
unlike effects, not necessarily unequal, but different. 

The accompanying characterization is suggestive only 



Anthropology ^93 

of such differences as bear upon the pedagogical ques- 
tions under consideration. Man is more energetic ; 
woman more persistent, has more endurance, though 
is less ambitious. Man is more inventive ; woman more 
intuitive. It is said that of the two sexes, man has the 
keenest ear, though he is oftenest deaf ; that among men 
are the brightest intellects, though they furnish a larger 
per cent, of the stupid; that there are more geniuses 
among men, but also the most cranks; in short, that 
woman is more uniform in both interest and activity. 
Some one has said that man sees farther into truth (in 
philosophy or science), woman sees more rapidly. The 
masculine method is passive and deliberate. The 
woman is quick to perceive, lively to act ; apt to blunder, 
but quick to correct and recover. Among the estab- 
lished conclusions of modem science is this that, both 
biologically and psychologically, and hence socially, 
woman is the conservative element of society ; man the 
variant, the radical. " The initiative of every move- 
ment, in all directions, good or bad, is determined by 
the male," says Le Conte,* " the conservation of what- 
ever balance of good there may be seems to be mainly 
by the female. The male tries all things, the female 
holds fast that which is good. By the one, society gains 
a little each generation ; by the other, the gain is con- 
served and made a new point of departure. The one 
is ever building hastily a scaffolding and platform ; the 
other ever consolidating into a permanent structure." 
In evolution man is the progressive factor, woman the 

* " Evolution," pp. 262, 263. 



394 Science of Education 

factor of stability and content. This last fact, 
coupled with, the extreme productiveness of the igno- 
rant, is a troublesome foe to education. Among the in- 
telligent it guarantees progress. The woman, not less 
than the man, if civilization is to b© cumulative, must 
have converged in her the highest ideals and noblest 
qualities of the race. For the future, if not for the pres- 
ent, society is interested that from the lowest levels up, 
those who may become parents shall be equipped to 
further any real gains the race may make ; that the 
ignorant may become intelligent ; the erratic, sane ; the 
coarse, refined ; the selfish, generous ; the brutal, tender. 
The schools may not safely disregard the fact that in 
these conditions lie one of the great problems of edu- 
cation. 

Given a perfect (accepted) system of schools, women, 
for the reason just noted, better administer it. Men 
are more disposed to revise and recast and redistribute 
their courses; to try experiments in school government; 
to mend supposed inconsistencies in the laws ; to com- 
plicate methods, and multiply the merely clerical work. 
The teaching of women, however, is, for the same 
reason, likely to become mechanical and their methods 
stereotyped. Of course, there are many and notable ex- 
ceptions to these bald statements on both sides, but, in 
general, they are believed to hold true. The tendency 
toward mechanism in teachers would be a far more dan- 
gerous one but for the compensating fact that woman, 
looking to results, emphasizes character ; man, schol- 
arship. In her own life also she is more likely to be 



Anthropology 395 

interested In ideals than in ideas as such. The liberal 
education of woman has been greatly forwarded by the 
recent multiplication of coordinate courses, and the 
introduction of the elective principle. 

Age also is an anthropological fact that is a deter- 
mining condition in all education. By age is not here 
meant the years of tlie individual's life, but rather the 
meaning of the relation between tlie period of physical 
and mental growth and maturity. The brevity of a 
generation limits the amount and rate of progress. 
An increase, however slight, in the length of the 
plastic period would have the effect to increase both. In 
most Western nations the entrance upon one's civic ma- 
jority is fixed at about the twentieth or twenty-first 
year; for women somewhat earlier. But it is evident 
that the actual term of growth of both body and mind 
continues some years. Every year added to this acquisi- 
tive stage is a gain to the race not less than to the in- 
dividual. Early precocity, so likely to be followed by 
early arrest, is to be deplored. A prolonged childhood 
is desirable. But the shortness of this jDeriod is accent- 
uated often by the forced early assumption of the duties 
of manhood. This is in part because of the brevity of 
the generation, and in part because of the direct or in- 
direct action of the greed for money and the prevalence 
of the industrial spirit. In either event, both the child 
and the community suffer. Age, once more, being in 
general commensurate with attainment and maturity, 
determines indirectly school classifications and the de- 
velopments upon which they are based. 



396 Science of Education 

The anthropological problems in pedagogics are, 
maybe, less urgently pressing upon teachers, but they 
are neither less important nor less directly related to 
formal education than those that arise out of the dis- 
tinctly social or psychological functions. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following list of books is suggestive only of the 
lines along which teachers may find further reading 
profitable. It is meant to be a working list in English 
for the busy teacher which will itself be the means of 
directing to other books. 

On Education and Educational Theory 

Bain, Alexander : Education as a Science. 

Butler, Nicholas M. : The Meaning of Education. 

DeGarmo, Charles : Interest and Education. 

Fouillee, Alfred : Education from a National Standpoint. 

Harris, William T.: The Psychological Foundations of Edu- 
cation. 

Oppenheim, Nathan : The Development of the Child. 

Palmer, F. B. : The Science of Education. 

Parker, Frances W. : Talks on Pedagogics. 

Payne, William H. : Contributions to the Science of Educa- 
tion. 

Rosenkranz, J. K. F. : The Philosophy of Education. 

Spencer, Herbert : Education. 

Tompkins, Arnold : The Philosophy of Teaching. 

On Physiological Psychology. 

Bernstein, Julius : The Five Senses of Man. 
Calderwood, Henry : The Relations of Mind and Brain. 
Clifford, William K. : Seeing and Thinking. 
Halleck, R. P. : The Education of the Central Nervous System. 

397 



398 Science of Education 

Ladd, George T.: The Elements of Physiological Psychology. 
Ladd, George T.: Outlines of Descriptive Psychology. 
Ribot, Th. : Heredity. 

On Psychology and Mental Growth 

Bain, Alexander: Mental Science. 

Bascom, John : Science of Mind. 

Dewey, John : Psychology. 

Dexter and Garlick : Psychology in the School-room. 

Everett, C. C. : The Science of Thought. 

James, William: Psychology. 

Oppenheim, Nathan : Mental Growth and Control. 

Porter, Noah: The Human Intellect. 

Spencer, Herbert : The Principles of Psychology. 

Sully, James : The Human Mind. 

Sully, James : Outlines of Psychology. 

Taine, H. A. : On Intelligence. 

Thompson, D. G. : A System of Psychology. 

On Ethics. 

Adler, Felix : The Moral Instruction of Children. 

Huxley, Thomas H. : Evolution and Ethics. 

Hyde, William DeWitt : Outlines of Social Theology. 

Mackenzie, John S. : A Manual of Ethics. 

Maurice, P. D. : Social Morality. 

Spencer, Herbert : Principles of Ethics. 

On Antliropology and Heredity. 

Clodd, Edward: The Childhood of the World. 
Dopp, Kathrine E . : The Place of the Industries in Element- 
ary Education. 
Galton, Francis : Inquiries into Human Faculty. 
Guyau, .1. M. : Education and Heredity. 
Herbartson : Man and His Work. 
Huxley, Thomas H. : Lay Sermons and Addresses. 
Huxley, Thomas H.: Science and Education. 



Bibliography 399 

Keary, C. F. : The Dawn of History. 

Kelly, Edmond : Evolution and Eilort, 

Lubbock, Sir John : Prehistoric Times. 

Lubbock, Sir John: The Origin of Civilization. 

Shaler, N. S. : Nature and Man. 

Tyler, E. B. : Anthropology. 

Whewell, William : A History of the Inductive Sciences. 

On Sociology and Evolution. 

Argyll, The Duke of : The Unity of Nature. 

Draper, John W. : The Intellectual Development of Europe. 

Dyer, Henry : The Evolution of Industry. 

Eliot, Charles W. : Educational Reform. 

Fairbanks : Introduction to Sociology. 

Fiske, John : The Destiny of Man. 

Giddings, F. W. : The Principles of Sociology. 

Henderson, Charles R.: Social Elements. 

Le Conte, Joseph: Evolution. 

Romanes, G. J. : Mental Evolution in Man. 

Shaler, N. S.: The Individual. 

Spencer, Herbert : The Principles of Sociology. 

Tarde, G. : Social Laws. 

Vincent, George E.: The Social Mind and Education. 

Ward, Lester F. : Dynamic Sociology. 

Ward, Lester F. : Psychic Factors in Civilization. 



INDEX 



Academic bias in education, 233 

Acquired perceptions, 261 

Acquired traits, inlieritance of, 
270 

Activity, instinct of, 125 

Adolescent period, 243, 244, 280- 
282 

Adult education, 61, 62 

Agassiz, Louis, 7 

Age as a factor in education, 395 

Agricultural life, 354 

Alfred, King, 27 

Aliens in tlie United States, and 
education, 387-389 

Analytic process, 293 

" Ancestors," by J. T. Trowbridge, 
quoted, 373 

Angelo, Michael, quoted, 157 

Animal and man, 78-81, 131 

Animal instinct, 79 

Animals, training of, 53 ; domes- 
tication of, 352 

Antliropology, 371 ; defined, 377 

Appreciation, 295 

Argyll, Duke of, 101 

Aristotle, 6, 128 ; ideal of educa- 
tion, 226 ; on virtue, 309 

Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 222 

Art In education, 230 

Art of teaching, 4 

Artists, 16 

Arts and sciences, 3 

Aspects of education, three, 202 

Association, 325-327 

Athletics, 220, 225 

Attention, 297 ; by Rosenkranz, 
31 ; and recollection, 302 ; and 
volition, 303, 804 ; stages of, 
305 



Auditory images, 259 
Azarlas, Brother, quoted, 226 

Bacon, Francis, 6 
Bacon, Roger, quoted, 381 
Bain, Alexander, quoted, 156, 215, 
217 ; " The Senses and the In- 
tellect," 196 ; on fear, 287 ; on 
Interest, 291 ; on discrimina- 
tion, 298 ; on mental change, 
299 ; on attention, 304 ; on 
emotions, 309 
Baker, J. II., quoted, 367 
Baldwin, Mark, quoted, 131, 196 
Barnard, Henry, 21 
Bascom, John, quoted, 124, 191 ; 
definition of psychology, 241 ; 
on temperament, 247, 251 ; on 
emotions, 308, 310 
Bibliography, 397-399 
Binet, A., 196 
Body, influence on mind, 242-244 ; 

influenced by mind, 244 
Boys and girls, 280 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 108 
Browning, Robert, 99, 104 
Byron, quoted, 150 

Capacities, mental, 266 

" Captains of Industry," 49 

Carlyle, quoted, 8 

Carpentry, art of, 5 

Categorical imperative, 337 

Catholic ideal of education, 26 

Cattell, Professor, 196 

Change, law of. Professor Bain, 

299 
Character in education, 234 ; 

training of, 65 



401 



402 



Index 



Characteristics of education, 44 

Charlemagne, 27 

Child, the, interests, 63, 196-198 ; 

mind, 273, 303 ; character, 270, 

303 ; in society, 345-348 
Chinese education, memory in, 

224 
Choleric temperament, 249 
Church, the, and education, 164 
Civic training, 220, 331, 332 
Civil war, stimulus to physical 

training, 230 
Civilization and education, 28, 68 
Classification and definition, 178 
Clifford, W. K., quoted, 186 
Coin illustration, 83 
Coleridge, S. T., quoted, 310 
College life, 334 
Colors, scale of, 259 
Comenius, ideal of education, 30 
Commercial interests, 359 
Common sense and science, 174 
Comparative view of education, 

202 
Compayre, G., quoted, 223 
" Compensation," 157 
Compulsory schooling, 234 
Comte on culture epoch theory, 

389 
Content of terms, 25 
Condition in education, 77, 164 
Conscious processes, 275 
Consciousness, 273 
Constructive processes, 295 
Contributing sciences, 203, 237 
Controlled processes, 291 
Controversial definitions, 224 
Copernicus, 200 
Culture Epoch Theory, the, 29, 

194, 389 

Daimon, the, of Socrates, 260 
Darwin on heredity, 270 
Data of educational science, 205 
Definition in science, 178 
Definitions of education, 34-39, 

78, 169 ; controversial, 224 ; 

Huxley's, 229 
Democritus mentioned, 257 



Descriptive view of education, 
202 

Designs by pupils, 297 

Development as periodicity, 278 

Dewey School, the, 194 ; defini- 
tion of education, 42 ; of psy- 
chology, 241 ; on consciousness, 
271 

Discipline, mental, 50 

Discrimination, 297 ; and science, 
300 

Disposition in mind, 246 

Dock, Christopher, 6 

Domestication of animals, 352 

Drummond, Henry, quoted, 164, 
221 

Duke of Argyll, 101 

Duns Scotus, 6 

Educable animal, man, 268 
Education and allied arts, 25 ; 
and civilization, 28, 68 ; a ra- 
tional process, 92 ; as an art, 
169 ; definitions of, 27, 28, 34- 
39, 78, 85, 169 ; as a process, 
46, 51-59 ; as a science, 169, 
171 ; by Bain, 287, 291 ; de- 
scribed, 44-73 ; products of, 47 ; 
subject of, 74 ; of the individ- 
ual, 66 ; relations of, 73 ; vs. 
schooling, 27, 169, 222, 223 ; 
vs. training, 45, 53, 57-59, 80- 
84 
" Education of the Central Ner- 
vous System," 257 
" Educational Reform," 234 
Educational theory, 218 
Educative lessons, 91 
Egyptians, early, 379 
Eliot, President Charles W., 33, 

234 
" Elizabethan age of youth," 282 
Emerson, R. W., 96, 106, 118, 

143, 157, 232 
Emotions, growth of, 807-316 
Engineering as a profession, 17 
Environment, human, 100 
Ethical culture, 227, 228 ; rela- 
tions, 329 ; Mackenzie, 330 



hideoo 



403 



Ethical principle, meaning of, 

33U 
I-thical theory of education, 232 
'■ Essay on Man," I'ope, 7 
ICverett, C. C, quoted, 176 
Experiment in science, 188 

Faith instinct, the, 159 

Farming, art of, 4, 10 

Fatigue and rest, 278 

Fear, wasteful, 287 

Feeling and knowing, 287 

Feeling, knowing, and willing, 
271 

Feelings, pleasurable, 288 ; growth 
of, 307-310 

Ferguson, Charles, 103 

Fichte, 7 

Forces of Nature, 381-383 

Fouillee, quoted, 386 

Francke's ideal of education, 226 

Franco-Prussian war, reference, 
230 

Franklin, Benjamin, 200 

Froebel, Friedrich, 83, 222 ; ethi- 
cal theory, 232 

Fundamentals in education, 75- 
175 

Fuse, experiences tend to, 298 

Galen, classifies temperaments, 
249 

Galton, Francis, 97, 137, 196 ; 
mental images, 260-262 ; nat- 
ure and nurture, 269 

Genesis, quotation from, 381 

Germ inheritance, 268 

Girls and boys, 280 

Gladstone's epigram, 300 

" Godless " schools, 231 

Goethe, 8 

Golden Rule, 330. 337 

Gordy, J. P., on attention, 301 

" Gradatim," reference to, 164 

Greeks mentioned, 215 

Gregarious instinct, the, 137 

Group relations, 142 

Growth in education, 164-160, 
208-213; orders of, 213, 215; 



of emotions, 307, 314 ; of in- 
telligence, 317 

Guyau, J. M., on attention, 301 ; 
on national education, 387 

Gymnastics vs. athletics, 230 

Habit, 196 

Hall, G. Stanley, 196, 243 
Halleck, R. P., quoted, 257 ; on 
hearing, 260 ; on adolescence, 
282 
Hamilton, Sir William, on mental 
capacity, 266 ; on feelings, 311 
Harris, William T., definition of 
education, 42 ; quoted, 120, 128, 
216 ; the mind's horizon, 265 ; 
on attention, 305 
Healing, art of, 5 
Hearing, sense of, 258-260 
Hebrew ideal of education, 226 
Hegel, quoted, 7 ; idealistic the- 
ory, 232 
Henderson, C. R., 144 
Herbart, 7, 228 ; on temperament, 

247 
Heredity, 267-270 ; and educa- 
tion, 270 
Herodotus, quoted, 379 
Hero worship in boyhood, 366 
Hinsdale. B. A., 112 
Historical relations, 146 ; method 

of study, 193 
History. 146 : for children, 320 
Holland, J. G., quoted, 164 
Holmes, O. W., quoted, 52 
" Honesty is the best policy " 

stage, 369 
Human environment, 100 
Humanism and training, 84 
Hunting and fishing, 350 
Huxley, Thomas H., quoted, 94, 
174, 178, 180, 191, 229, 245; 
definition of education. 229 ; on 
anthropology, 371 ; on moral 
growth, 384 
Hyde, W. De Witt, quoted, 95, 

102 
Hygiene, school. 220 
Hypothesis in science, 191 



404 



Indeoo 



Ideal processes, 289 

Idealistic theory of education, 

232, 235 
Ideals, 161 

Images, auditory, 259 ; visual, 262 
Imitation, 127, 141, 196 
" Impenetrability," Kant, 314 
Inattention rs. non-attention, 304 
" Inclusive type" in science, 171) 
Indifferent, interest in the, 291 
" Indirection," quoted, 122 
Individual and person, 149 
Individuality in training, 269 
Induction in science, 190 
Industrial education, 224 
Industry, organized, 332 ; educa- 
tion through, 349 ; stages of, 
349 
Initiative, personal, 128-130 ; 

child, 297 
Instinct of growth, 211 
Instincts, animal, 79 ; human, 

124, 125 
Institutions, 145, 147 ; of learn- 
ing, 334 
Instrument, the, of education, 76, 

94 
Integration of experience, 63 ; 

tendency to, 298 
Intellectual education, 221-225 
Intelligence, growth of, 317 
Interpretation, processes of, 295 
Investigation, scientitic, 132, 187 
Isolation, power of, 300 

James, Professor William, quoted, 
94, 98, 124, 129, 132, 187, 138, 
196, 217 ; definition of psychol- 
ogy, 241 ; on perception. 2.")5~ 
264 ; man as educable animal. 
268 ; on heredity, 270 ; on con- 
sciousness, 271 : field of psy- 
chology, 273 ; images, 289 ; law 
of integration, 298, 327 ; on 
attention, 301-303 : on feelings, 
310 
.Japanese, rapid rise of, 388 
.Tastrow, Joseph, definition of edu- 
cation, 241 



Jevons, quoted, 223 ; on scientific 

theory, 232 
Johns Hopkins University, 196 
Johonnot, James, quoted, 103 
Journal of Psychology, 196 
Journalism, 18 

Kant, Immanuel, quoted, 4, 7 ; 

classification of feelings, 311 
Kelly. Edmond, quoted, 112, 114 
Kindergarten movement, the, 197 
King, H. C, quoted, 139 
Kipling, Rudyard, 104 
Knowing and feeling, 287 ; and 

willing, 271 
Knowledge as moral power, 221 

Ladd, G. T., 196 ; on tempera- 
ment, 246, 248 ; on vision, 261 ; 
on mind, 267 ; on conscious- 
ness, 273 : on attention, 301- 
303 ; classification of feelings, 
311, 312 
Lancaster, Professor, quoted, 280 
Lange. on child development. 278 
Laurie, on child development, 278 
Lavoisier, 200 
Law as an art, 13, 16, 20 
Laws, the, of Plato, 6 
Laws of Nature, 182 
Lay writers on education, 8 
Learned professions. 15 
Learning, three ways of, 130 ; 

and education, 208, 233 
Legislation, influence of, 331 
Leibnitz, 7 
Lewes, George H., quoted, 173, 

216 
Lieber, Francis, 148 
" I-imited class " in science, 179 
Lincoln. Abraham, 49, 58 
Jjindgren. Miss H., quoted, 157 
Lindner, quoted. 256 ; on sight, 

261 
liiterature and moral culture. 307 
Locke, John, quoted, 7, 179, 254 
Logical order of knowledges, 170; 
view of education, 203 ; in 
teaching, 285 



Index 



405 



" Lucile," quotation, 377 
Luther, Martin, 3, 7 ; Ideal of 
education, 2l'G 

Mackenzie, J. S., quoted, 239 ; on 

etliieal culture, 330, 338 
MacVicar, on child development, 

278 
]Male teachers, 24 
Man and woman, 392 
Mann, Horace, 21 
Manners and customs, 330 
Manual training, 197, 219 
" Manual of Ethics," quoted, 239 
Manufacturing life, 356-359 
Materialistic theory of education, 

232 
Means in teaching, 209-212 
Mechanizing conduct, 368 
Medicine as an art, 10, 16, 20 
Melancholic temperament, 250 
Memory, emphasis of, 223 
" Mens sana," 242 
Mental capacities, 266 
Mental processes, 283 
Meredith, Owen, quoted, 377 
Mill, J. S., quoted, 210 
Milton, John, 3, 8 
Mind influences body, 244 
Moodiness, 277 
Moral culture, stages in, 360- 

366 ; in the school, 368 
Moral ends in education, 225 ; 

and evolution, 384 
Moral quality in acts, 226, 227 
Motive in education, 77, 124-163 
Motor activities, 197, 265 
Music, art of, 5 
Myths In child training, 391 

Narcotics and stimulants. 220 
National Educational Association 

reports. 194 
Natural barriers, 379 
Natural history sciences, the 178 
Nature and nurture, 269 
Negro problem in the United 

States, 387 
Nervous energy, 242 



Newton, Sir Isaac, 200 
Non-school agencies of education, 

60 
Normal schools, 9, 22 
Normative sciences, 208, 239 

Observation in science, 187 
Ogden, John, quoted, 223 
Oppenheim, N., quoted, 165, 308 
Orders of growth, 213, 215 ; in 

educational theory, 218 
" Outlines of Psychology," 274 

Page, David P., quoted, 224 

Palmer, F. B., quoted, 285 

Parker, F. W., quoted. 111 

Pastoral life, 352 

Patriotism. 152 

" Pedagogical Seminary," 196 

Pedagogical writings. 6, 8, 20, 

21 ; departments, 11 
Pedagogics, 29 ; and pedagogy, 25, 

30 ; and philosophy, 6 
Pedagogy, 25, 30 ; as a scienc 

185 
Perez, 196 

Periodicities of mind, 276 
Personal relations, 140 
Pestalozzi, 3 

Philosophy and pedagogics, 6 
Phlegmatic temperament, 251 
Physical influences on man, 378 
Physical training, 45, 219, 228, 

229, 245 
Physiological relations of mind, 

239-265 
Plato, 3, 6 ; quoted, 215, 228 
Porter, Dr. Noah, quoted, 257 ; 
on special senses, 258 ; on vis- 
ion, 261 : on unity of mind, 
272 : on discrimination, 298 ; 
on anthropology, 371 
Practical studies, 218 
Pragmatics, 215, 220 
Preaching as an art, 13, 20 
Prediction In science, 183 
Presentative processes, 289 
Preyer, W.. quoted. 125, 128, 196 
Primitive races, study of, 214 



406 



Index 



Principles of teaching, 5, 8 
Processes, mental, 283 ; in edu- 
cation, 841 
Products of education, 47 
Pi'ofession and trade, 12, 14, IG 
Professional schools, 11 
Proper names, words as, 293 
Property, notion of, 151, 353, 

354 
Protestant ideal of education, 226 
Psychological laboratories, 195 
Psychology defined, 240, 241 ; and 
educational science, 2GG 

Questionaires, 197 

Race education, 69-71, 126 

Race as a factor in education, 

214, 223, 252 ; and nationality, 

385 
Rarey, horse trainer, 79 
Rational world, 94 ; theory of 

education, 232-234 
Realf, Richard, quoted, 122, 212 
Reformation, 3 
Religion and morals, 227 
Renaissance, the, 233 
Representative processes, 289 
Republic, the, of Plato, 6 
Rest and fatigue, 278 
Rhythm, sense of, 153-159 ; in 

nature, 154 
Rhythmic activities, 277 
Ribot, Th., " (In Memory," IflG 
Right, child sense of. 3G0-3GG 
Robertson, G. Croom, 196 
Rosenkranz, 7, 120, 215, 21G, 

220 : on attention, 301, 305 
Rousseau, J. J., 3, 229 
Royce, Josiah, 130, 196 
Ruskin, John, quoted, 155 

Saint Paul, quoted, 310 
Sanguine temperament. 250 
Savings banks in schools, 218 
Schiller, quoted, 308 
Scholarship in education, 47-50, 
318 



School, function of, 56 ; cliques, 
143 ; courses, 235 

" Schul Ordnung," the, 6 

Science, nature of. 173, 174-184 ; 
and discrimination, 300 ; of 
education, 3, 4, 11, 30, 207, 
232 ; of teaching, 30, 170 ; and 
education, 180 

" Science of Thought," the, 176 

Scientific knowledge, 174-176 ; 
method, 186-195, 198 ; theory 
of education, 232 

Scripture, E. W., 196 

Self-effort in education, 67 

Self-estrangement, 120, 123 

Self-teaching. 126 

Sense-culture, 72, 263, 264 

Sensuous processes, 289 

Sex-differences, 280 ; and educa- 
tion, 391-394 

Sheib, E., quoted, 224 

" Ship that found herself. The," 
104 

Shortening courses, 168 

Shoup, F. A., " Mechanism and 
Personality," 115, 116 

Sight, sense of, 261 

" Slain Self. My." extract, 212 

Smith, Sidney, quoted, 309 

Social group, 142, 338, 339 

Social relations, 140, 143-146, 
160 : science of, 329, 338 

Socrates, 6 ; daimon of, 260 

Soil, love of, 150 

Solidarity of mind, 63-66, 325- 
328 

Solomon referred to, 235 

Special senses. 254-265 ; pedagogy 
of, 263 

Spencer. Herbert, 3, 96, 155, 215 
utilitarian in education, 232 
definition of psychology, 241 
on mind. 267 ; on heredity, 
270 ; quoted, 257 ; on sense 
training. 264 ; on feelings, 311, 
310; on culture epoch theory, 
389 

Spiritual theory of education, 232 

Spontaneous processes, 291 



Index 



407 



stages of development, 278 

States of mind, 273 

Stein, quoted, 42 

Stream of thouglit, 272 

Struggle for the existence of oth- 
ers, 221 

Subconscious activities, 274 

Subject of education, 74 

Sully, James, quoted, 139, 196 ; 
nature of psychology, 241, 273 ; 
on feelings, 311 ; physiological 
psychology, 254 ; on heredity, 
270 ; on consciousness, 274 ; 
on discrimination of difference, 
297 ; on attention, 301 

Synthetic processes, 293 

Taine, H., " On Intelligence," 196 

Tarde, G., 130, 141 

Teachers, training of, 32 

Teaching, 25, 31, 67 ; as an art, 
32, 170 ; as a profession, 19 ; 
the science of, 170 

Technical training, 84 

Temperament, 246-253 ; classifica- 
tion, 249 

Thing and thought, 121 

Thompson, D. G., quoted, 248 ; 
discrimination, 298 ; on feel- 
ings, 314 

Thorndyke, Edward, 129, 130 

" Three R's," the, 90 

Time, a factor in education, 164- 
170 



Touch, the basic sense, 257 ; re- 
lation to sight, 261 

Trade and profession, 12, 14, 18 

Trade relations, 333, 334 

Training, 86-92 ; vs. education, 
167, 168 

Transmission of acquired traits, 
269, 270 

Trowbridge, J. T., quoted. 373 

Tylor, E. B., on anthropology, 
372 

Unconscious processes, 275 
Understanding vs. execution, 296 
Universal education, 27 
Universe, reaction upon mind, 116 
Utilitarian theory of education, 
232 

" Volition is attention," 303 
Voluntary attention, 304 

Ward, Lester F., quoted, 201,- 

223 ; scientific theory, 232 
Weather predictions, 10 
Weismann, A., on heredity, 269, 

270 
Whewell, Dr. William, 178 
Willing, feeling, and knowing, 

271 
Woman and man, 391-394 
Women as teachers, 394 
Wundt, Professor W., 196 ; on 

temperament, 249 



JUL 30 1904 



